When worlds (real & imagined) open up
Mind Your Own Map | No. 2 🧠
I’ve been quieter than anticipated here at Nōto. Six weeks of mysterious (and sometimes debilitating) headaches interrupted my plans for writing. I’m no stranger to chronic pain, but it was a doozy! Thankfully, those headaches have subsided, and I can type thoughts onto the page again.
I thought it’d be fun to share another volume of Mind Your Own Map with you. MYOM is a monthly prompt to visualize and connect what we learn, think, and experience.
Not sure what I mean? The intro post below shares context for the series:
This time, rather than listing a bunch of stand-out resources, I’ve picked a few topics to expand on and share how they made their way into my noggin.
As always, feel free to visit the comments and tell me what you’ve been thinking about! I’d love to know. 🤗
On the mind lately
A beloved British children’s TV show 🦆
Today’s mind map started with Sarah and Duck.
On a slow afternoon, you might find my family squished on the couch watching episodes together. But I’ve also sat there alone, marveling over the show’s tiny artistic details. How can I not? The episodes plop me into a kaleidoscope of imagination where I can reconnect with my younger self.
Like Sarah, my sister and I were expressive, curious, and sincere little girls. After joining our parents at doctor’s visits, hair appointments, Bible studies or even the hangar where dad worked, we’d promptly recreate scenes when we returned home.1
It was an important mission to figure out what toys, art supplies, and everyday items were needed to fashion those “real world” experiences for ourselves. Eventually, I’d learn to use the computer so we could have menus, eye exam charts, magazines, and brochures on hand. I often felt proud of what we’d put together.
Our homemade worlds sprung from the observations we brought back with us. We didn’t know this, of course, but those reenactments—from collecting materials to staging to pretending—were helping us process our lives.
Fred Rogers believed that “for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.”
Sarah and Duck director, Tim O’Sullivan, explained in an interview:
“Tapping into the idea that when you’re five years old a trip across the living room can be the most exciting thing you do that day, depending on where you imagine yourself to be. So finding the joy and beauty in the little things meant that we naturally sidestepped any need to moralise or teach the audience something.”
The show, crafted with such care, guides us into an expansive world of curiosity and delight. I expect to sing its praises for a very, very long time.
A symphonic fairy tale 🎶
I’ve been walking by the river these days, more responsive to my body’s need for movement and air beyond our apartment walls. Or, in slang: time to get off my butt.
On a recent river visit, still fixated on Sarah and Duck, I began to study the real life feathery friends paddling about. As I did, a memory emerged and floated my way.
When I was eight, I danced onstage in Peter and the Wolf. It was my first ballet performance open to the public, and much different than spring recitals with parents and siblings and aunts aww-ing from the audience, capturing out of sync tendus with camcorders (remember those??).
For my costume, velvety white draped over my head and covered my upper body. Orange tights blended into webbed, felt shoes of the same color. My hair was tucked into a baseball cap, the bill wrapped with more orange felt. I thought this DIY costume was brilliant. At the sound of the oboe, I waddled onstage with my duck family of four, waiting for the right musical cue to pluck a feather from my tail.
As I got older, my favorite story ballet performances were on Friday mornings, when school groups filed in and sat on the floor, chins tilted toward the stage. They’d giggle and gasp, reacting in ways that would get them hushed in a more “refined” setting. Grownups can be so stuffy.
Sergei Prokofiev created Peter and the Wolf specifically for children, telling this fairy tale through narration and musical composition. He used characters to introduce his audience to different instruments. The clarinet became the Cat, a flute the Bird, an oboe the Duck, and so on.
While reading about classical music for children, I found an article I enjoyed written by a South Korean composer, Unsuk Chin. She writes:
“. . .there is an evolutionary encoded thirst for artistic complexity and beauty, which can, and will, wither if it is not being nourished.”
I was lucky to interact with performing arts at a young age, and am grateful this appreciation has only swelled over the years. I’ve loved inviting others into these experiences and seeing them swept up by beauty, too.
A thought-provoking conversation 🗣️
With school under way again, I’m trying to make good use of the commute to car rider pick-ups. I’m listening to more podcast episodes covering design or disability. It’s even better when the two converge.
I’m sure many are familiar with the 99% Invisible podcast, but I had never heard of it. The first episode I listened to was episode 546 with Andrew Leland, which I highly recommend. It’s so insightful and well-produced.
Leland recently published a memoir, The Country of the Blind, where he explores his active transition into blindness and the culture surrounding it. I haven’t read the book yet, but my hold at the library is almost ready.2 I can’t wait!
Personal experience enfolded me into the disability community years ago, but there is still so much to learn—especially when it comes to my own biases and misperceptions.
After listening to this episode, I had to confront the superiority I’ve had around reading technologies. I hadn’t considered the incredible access audiobooks open up for people and, sadly, had been rigid in my opinions.
Roman Mars: You can hear this conservatism and condescension, not only in those people who malign the e-book, but also in the voices of people who say that you haven’t really read a book if you listen to it. They contend that real reading only happens with the eyes.
Andrew Leland: But the history of blindness and reading shows that the way we read has always been in flux. The media scholars and book historians I talked to all told me the same thing: Reading doesn’t happen in the eyes or the ears or the fingers, it happens in the brain. And this is a nice thing to hear if you’re going blind.
Sometimes I’ll hear an exchange like this and think of course, they are right! Thank you Andrew Leland for helping me think differently. It’s so good to hear from other voices.
Let’s talk in the comments 👋🏼
Do we share any recent thought-topics? If so, what are they?
Tell me about any interesting scenes you recreated as a kid!
Which performing arts do you enjoy? I want your recs for musicals, ballets, stand up comedies, etc., I should check out.
I look forward to hearing from you!
—E.T.
PS. Enjoy today’s post? Click that little heart to let me know. 💛
One of our best reenactments was the EKG test. Materials used:
plastic shopping cart → mobile trolley
kid’s cash register → EKG
hole reinforcement stickers → disposable electrodes
continuous feed paper → rhythm strip
Anyone else have way too many books on loan?!
This post made my mind spark all over the place! Remembering performances as a kid...and also made me think..."wow...as an adult there really isn't ever a time I am called to line up in a formation." That happened all the time when I was younger.
I noticed "left-handed" was on your mind map. Are you a lefty? I am!
Downloading "The Country of the Blind" episode right now so I can listen to it on my plane ride home. Thank you for sharing and thank you for putting together another heartfelt, wide-eyed, honest piece of writing.
Oh, by the way, do you create your mind maps on paper first and then convert them to a digital image or do you create them digitally from the start? I'd be curious what program you use if you do create them digitally.