And once more, I open one of those books with a big map flaunted on its first spread to give the outpouring of words that follow a geographic context. “Feel free to add,” the letters cheerfully encourage me. The carefully colored North arrow provides a first clue about the direction of it all. The regional weather forecast alludes to rain coming from the mountains. I remember Umberto Eco saying that he who aims to tell, first has to create a world – a world embellished to the tiniest detail...

As I start my journey, lost in musings about where I want my thoughts to take me next, an edge of my travelling fare – a chunk of freshly bitten chocolate cookie – falls onto the pages of the book. I just added a new country – or is it a forest? Now I’m part of the history of this world, if only by accident. My country is rather pathetic, but it blends terrifically into the existing surroundings.

I once read that an artist is the ultimate God of his creation, and I take that to heart and crown myself sovereign of the small addition to the map. I decide to travel my own country first – you have to show interest in new things, after all. Since I can’t find a single chapter about the hope- ful junior addition, I spontaneously write my own on the empty page that precedes the foreword.