I began this before Christmas. Things were different there then.
For ages, I’d been meaning to start some map-making again. For me it’s a way of remembering and treasuring my connection with a place. It’s been years, but the deep impact of a one-off Big Trip finally spurred me forwards. I kept telling myself I should do some maps of California, but where to start? Surprisingly, when I began to doodle, it was our little by-the-way stint in LA that came out first.
It was by no means the most important part of the trip, but there was something about our cosy neighbourhood in Venice Beach. It sat, perfectly placed, a few blocks from the sea, where the sun set behind tiny blue lifeguard huts with their stumpy stilt legs. Just around the corner was the hidden maze of leaf-lined canals, drenched in sunlight, where a lone trumpeter’s tunes slunk lazily through gently breeze-billowed curtains.
Two days in LA. I had almost written off that part of the trip. But here was all this beauty and light. It took me by surprise. After hating the frenetic busyness of the LA freeway, we decided to simply tick off the two most important things on our list and then stay put in our little corner; catch our breath. Despite that, or maybe because of it, Venice Beach became a part of our stay I remember with genuine fondness.
So, I began this map. Slowly. Sketchily. Lots of rubbing out when I lost track of the scale and found areas colliding into one another. But I had started at least.
And then Christmas happened. I pressed pause.
I was always planning to pick this up again once the seasonal craziness died down. I just hadn’t expected the place I was mapping to have been through so much in the meantime. By the time I picked up my pencils again in January, my news feed was full of very different images of the area. A backdrop of flames behind Santa Monica where we had strolled along the beach.
I think the memory of being in a place - of seeing people live and work and go about their business there, just getting on with it - always makes a disaster that bit more shocking. ‘Our’ little corner was safe, but nobody could have guessed how different their wider landscape would look now.
And of course, it’s not just the January fires. Things just feel different when I think of America now.
So, I get back to my Venice Ca. map, aware that things have shifted a little. News broadcasts inevitably moved on from the fires but my thoughts remained with the people whose homes are still burnt to rubble. And I say a prayer for the future while my pencil draws a memory of safety.
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