Borders before Bedtime

A few years ago, Mr. Shakes’ dad bought him an atlas for Christmas. It’s the tenth edition of The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, and the thing is absolutely massive, with page after page of amazingly detailed maps and images and satellite photos. Saying it’s a handy reference is an understatement.

Last night, Mr. Shakes was telling me about Boudica, which segued into a discussion about early British history, and, as we spoke about the Saxons and Picts and the expansion of the Roman Empire, we pulled out the atlas, so we could trace history’s movements. We laid side by side on the floor, and stretched out the immense book in front of us, our shoulders bumping as we reached to trace lines through Scandinavia or to turn the page for a closer look at northern Britain.

We traveled to Oceania, and the Americas, and Asia, lingering in the Middle East to examine the borders that are ever in the news, and marveling that one continent could hold so many vastly different cultures. Syria, India, and Japan all on one map, defined by one continental border. It seems so strange.

Mr. Shakes flipped to the map of the U.S. It was the first time in awhile either of us had seen a map of the country that wasn’t broken down into red and blue. My index finger of my right hand landed on Nantucket, just as his left found San Francisco. The whole country, within our collective reach. Mr. Shakes remembered finding in the atlas the small Indiana town in which we now live, and showing his father where he was moving.

The world seemed smaller and smaller as I looked at countries and thought of people I’d met from each. The French soldier who’d been my student in an English conversation class. The Indonesian coworker I’d had, a brilliant artist who used to send me into fits of convulsive laughter with stories about his mother’s dachshunds fighting the local monkeys. The Ukranian exchange student who’d been a pal for her short stay. My Danish penpal, who I’d met just once in England while we were both there. My former neighbor from Nigeria. My childhood friend from Vietnam. And on and on, coupled with memories of being an American abroad, and all the curious questions disclosing my home would inevitably elicit.

Eventually, we tore ourselves away from the atlas, and the Scotsman and the American went to their bed.

This morning, I read the news, and the world seemed very big again. The borders people create around themselves are often so frustratingly impenetrable, can make us seem worlds apart, even when we’re in the same room.

Our conversation last night began with wars, the protracted battle for Britain, so one might conclude that the problem of borders, national and personal and all in between, is simply part of the human condition. Intractable. Never to be solved. But the sense of the world being small, the camaraderie between people from distant shores that makes borders seem, even if momentarily, unnecessary, is part of the human condition, too. A better part. Nobler. I've no solution, no conclusion. I'm just going to spend more time with my atlas, and try to keep close the feelings it evokes.