Maps and Memories

If I could draw a map of my life, tracing back from now to then, drawing red circles around the most important moments, tapping with the back of a pencil at certain points: these were the days she used to live in stories, with toys that talked, and chairs that flew; these were the days she used to lie on her back and watch her reflection in the metal circle of the ceiling fan; this was when she wrote her first poem; this is when she would sit in the lit passage of her mother’s room and play; that’s the day when she first wore the blue-and-yellow skates; those were weeks when someone she loved fell into a pool of unrequited love …

I wonder if maps can tell us when exactly it is that we stop living books and start reading them instead.