Blue Moon Rising | Modern Art Mobile by Mark Leary Designs
On directions
“I think I’m lost,” said mouse.
“If you’re thinking,” replied fox, “there’s a good chance you are.”
Thoughts while making
“But how do I know which way is north?”
When I was a kid, my dad would take my older brother and me backpacking. For weeks, he’d plan, buy supplies, pre-pack and repack our backpacks. And pour over maps.
His were green topographical with thousands of contour lines, and they made my head spin.
“But how do you know where you are?”
As a teenager, malls were all the rage. But, even as I was looking at the store directory that clearly told me with a big red star that “You Are Here,” I often struggled to understand where I really was.
“But how do you know where you’re going?
As an adult before Google Maps, we had Thomas Guides: a book filled with page after page of street maps for a given city. If it’s possible for a map to get you more lost than you already were, I was at the front of that line.
“But how will I know when I’m there?”
Maps have always confounded me, so when I send off a mobile I rarely look to see where it’s headed. What matters to me are not the locations, but the relations that have been made in the making; and the precious lines that connect giver and gifted.
In 2019, Blue Moon Rising mapped these sweet relations of connection 52 times between friends, family, and loved ones from Honolulu to Geispolsheim, Ludwigslust to Toulouse, Kockengen to Montreal, and of course this one given from a son to his stepmom in Denmark.
I am ever grateful to be even the tiniest part of the heart mapping and orientation that occurs when someone generously exclaims with a gift of love that “You Are Here” and you matter. That’s a map I can read and appreciate.
What is one way you can help someone feel “in the right place” today?