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by Heidi K. Brown (Author)
The Map I Draw: A Memoir of Travel as a Passport to Self
Roam. Write. Heal. Age powerfully.
Seven years pre-pandemic, in a sticky parking lot in South Florida in the United States, Heidi's father-an Episcopal minister-lays down a gauntlet: "You're not going to find your soul in Rome." What begins as a quest to prove her pious parents wrong-that she's not irreparably broken, lost, unworthy-morphs into an adventure of relationship-trauma-recovery through the lens of travel.
Heidi hops on the back of a carabiniere police officer's motorcycle in Rome, bangs a shaman's drum inside an Indigenous sweat lodge in Vancouver, climbs a precarious mountain peak in Peru, jumps up and down at U2 concerts in multiple countries, and snorkels with a reef shark in Australia. She untangles fears, discerns unhealthy attachment patterns, expunges decades of misplaced shame, and erases property lines drawn by others (family, toxic law firm bosses, men) on her body, mind, and soul.
The pandemic temporarily robbing Heidi of one of her four well-being pillars (travel, boxing, writing, and U2's music), she finally books a one-way ticket to Croatia, one of only two European countries accepting vaccinated Americans without quarantine. She reboots her mojo in Split, rewilds in Spain's Canary Islands, then resurges anew in Rome, celebrating her fiftieth birthday a year late.
Throughout these adventures, Heidi identifies travel as her utensil of agency and rebellion. In exploring the world, she reconstitutes her soul's DNA. She deletes a life soundtrack of criticism, rejection, and management of her body by others. She nurtures a love of languages, learning, and lushness of mid-life femininity.
