A web of connections
Looking around my room there’s a multitude of small things that stand out to me. There’s my white Adidas sandals that are lying next to my bed instead of next to the door. There’s also my empty water pitcher that stands on the window sill instead of in the fridge. Even in my roommate’s mess of a side, I notice that the stacks of chocolate milk that were once on his desk now reside in his trash can. Everything has a place in this room, no matter how small or large that thing may be. These small, seemingly insignificant parts of my room contribute to what is actually a working machine.
However, my room is just a microcosm of the machine that makes up Boston. Going to Main Campus from Newton, I’ve noticed many people wearing Boston Celtics jerseys, Boston Bruins hats, and many other pieces of sports merchandise that are specific to Boston. It’s a small detail, but it allows us to distinguish ourselves and our small part of the world from any other place. It’s unlikely that any other place in the world boasts the same collection of people flaunting their support for the city of Boston. Each jersey, each piece of merchandise contributes to the workings of the city. Likewise, if I were to map the people I’ve seen on campus, say people who I’ve seen wear Boston College clothes, there’d be many similarities and differences between this group of people. Some people may be majors in business, others in education, but they’re all linked by that sweater or t-shirt representing our school. Every small detail in our community relies on and contributes to some other one because of the way that all the components of it are interconnected.
Walking throughout my dorms, I see these same connections. The license plates put up by our RA with our names and home states demonstrate that although we may have grown up in New York, Pennsylvania, or Washington, we now share a common college experience. The broken glass at the entrance of Keyes always prompts strangers to interact, to ask each other what possibly could have happened here. Although these people don’t know each other, their shared interest in this strange occurrence brings them together. Similarly, the missing chairs in our fourth floor lounge prompt us to go to different floors and meet new people, even if it’s for the sake of finding those damn chairs and bringing them back for good.
What this demonstrates to me is that we are, just like everything around us, significant parts in the machine that is our neighborhood. Due to how many other parts each component of our community links to, everything has a crucial role to play and the only way to really understand the extent of these connections is through mapping. I’ve always saw mapping as simply stating where something was in relation to something else. However, looking deeper into my own community and its interactions has made me realize that mapping has a much greater purpose. It’s able to analyze not only the locations of specific components of our community but it’s also able to distinguish all of its links to the moving parts around it, allowing me to create a deeper relationship between myself and my community.
Sebo's Sanctuary 