False maps or memories
January 15th, 2023
I keep looking and I cannot find the correct old map. I do find maps that have all the correct markings and names and the date of creation with the year I am looking for. At the first glance, they look vaguely correct but on closer inspection, they are all false. They don't correspond to the reality that I remember of the particular place I know very well. Or I thought I know very well because now I am not so sure. Either the maps are wrong and were created only to mess with my mind, or my memory is faulty. And it might seem easier to admit to a global conspiracy created to make and publish wrong maps just to spite me than to admit that what I remember is faulty and my mind is not a reliable container of memories.
As much as I love conspiracy theories, I am going to have to accept the fact that what remember is wrong.
There is a railroad track crossing and dividing my forest. A forest where I spend countless days hiking and biking and skiing over several decades. There was a local street right by where the forest ends and civilizations begins anew. A straight and narrow street between the trees with a level crossing on the said railroad track. Some years ago an estacade was built over the track, the street was widened and connected to other streets and an expressway nearby. A completely new traffic network was created and today it seems like it was like that since forever. Even I have trouble recalling how the area really looked like before the construction happened there. And that was only 8 years ago — I doubled checked news sources to make sure when actually that happened and the grand opening was only in the autumn of 2014.
What I remember is the narrow street with only a few outlets onto dirt forest paths there in the vicinity of the railroad level crossing. Trees were everywhere and the paths were winding among them giving us local kids so many opportunities for fun and adventure. And now — it is where the maps come in. I looked at different maps of this area from 1985 to 2014, thanks to the wonders of the internet. And they all show the same thing — the street was still narrow but well-connected to other streets in the area. There was even a traffic circle just 50 meters back from where the photo above was taken. Maps show even bus stops there and pedestrian crossings and the road diverging just after the railroad track going to the suburban area where some of my family lived and whom I visited often.
I don't remember any of that.
What is in my memory is only a narrow road crossing the forest without any connection to other streets which required me to bike on forest paths to get to the other side. I don't recall any other streets, intersections, or the fact that buses used this street. I remember just the usually empty asphalt ribbon that was there, disconnected from the rest of the world. And it seems I remember it wrong. And I am not going to fight it or justify it in any way — my childhood memories of that particular place are wrong. Are there more of those memories I remember wrong?
