Walking Zelda
Metadata
Highlights
- I carried the official map of Hyrule folded in my back pocket. I opened and closed it so many times that my mom had to laminate the folds with scotch tape. It accrued that pleasing patina of a well-used and well-loved thing. The map, a totem of potential. I unfolded it on the bus to school, held tiny sermons in those greasy pleather seats to those who wanted to know where some item was hidden or the way through the enchanted forest. Blue ballpoint pen scribbles marked the precise blocks to bomb, the right waterfall to pass through. (View Highlight)
- Undeniably, distance has been bridged, and whether you like it or not, you are no longer who you once were. Or, rather, you are exactly who you once were, but hopefully with a better understanding of how not to let your lesser demons get the best of you. You can then, as a 40-year-old grown-ass adult, decide to buy an OLED Switch and install Zelda: Breath of the Wild and commit a silly amount of time to not just beating the game (of course) but to walking and exploring and communing with that other self, that on-the-school-bus self, that surrounded-by-fear (so much fear, violence, nearby) self. (View Highlight)
- I suppose there’s a way to look at all of my walking in Japan: A rendering of gratitude to a place for having made the thing that set me on a better path. I want to say thanks to a thing that is un-thankable (my neighbor, sadly, died of a heart attack before I could really thank him years later once I understood his gift). I want to elevate all those I encounter along the road because a long time ago I felt elevated by Link and his shields and swords and the Triforce. This sounds so simple, so dumb, but this is what’s so heartbreaking about this world of ours — it doesn’t take much to shift a child in ways that change their life for the better. (View Highlight)
- Most of the time we just walked. We’d see a mountain on the horizon and go climb it – projected on the wall in a dark room, us sitting on beanbags on the floor. In the game we’d build a fire, marvel at the stars, sleep our character until dawn, wake to catch the sunrise. It was always a walk worth taking. (View Highlight)
- The moment I stepped into Minami Dani, alone, I felt an intense triptych of experience splayed before me. There was the reality of Minami Dani itself, but then there was the reality of so many scenes projected on that wall in that dark room, her by my side. Instantly I understood the provenance of the game’s color and light, textures and creatures. All of it pentimenti to what I stood before: The flitting dragonflies, the glancing sunbeams, the lush quality of green, the small ponds and once old — now dilapidated — stone bridges. But then, also, there was the memory of me as that child, playing that first Zelda in two-dimensional overhead simplicity. In a flash these three experiences overlapped. I sensed an eerie parallelism. There were many lives to be lived, and here was this one, unfurling uniquely. Propelled by no small dollop of luck. It was as if I had been waiting to arrive at Minami Dani for over three decades, as if the childhood version of myself had found true love in the mystery and adventure of that schoolbus map and secretly set some far off marker. Suddenly, I had arrived, without knowing I had even been searching for this very place. (View Highlight)
- I told her about this place, this place that was just like the game. (We’d later visit together.) In telling her I was telling myself on the bus the same thing: This map you hold in your hands is out there, is a place to be walked, and this work — scrutinizing the landscape, sensing in your bones the goodness of knowing a thing in totality, sharing that knowledge, building, repeating, moving forward, believing in all these feelings — work that feels so small, in the end, gets you out, keeps you going, cracks it all open. (View Highlight)
title: “Walking Zelda”
author: “Craig Mod”
url: ”https://craigmod.com/ridgeline/157/”
date: 2023-07-29
source: reader
tags: media/articles
Walking Zelda
Metadata
Highlights
- I carried the official map of Hyrule folded in my back pocket. I opened and closed it so many times that my mom had to laminate the folds with scotch tape. It accrued that pleasing patina of a well-used and well-loved thing. The map, a totem of potential. I unfolded it on the bus to school, held tiny sermons in those greasy pleather seats to those who wanted to know where some item was hidden or the way through the enchanted forest. Blue ballpoint pen scribbles marked the precise blocks to bomb, the right waterfall to pass through. (View Highlight)
- Undeniably, distance has been bridged, and whether you like it or not, you are no longer who you once were. Or, rather, you are exactly who you once were, but hopefully with a better understanding of how not to let your lesser demons get the best of you. You can then, as a 40-year-old grown-ass adult, decide to buy an OLED Switch and install Zelda: Breath of the Wild and commit a silly amount of time to not just beating the game (of course) but to walking and exploring and communing with that other self, that on-the-school-bus self, that surrounded-by-fear (so much fear, violence, nearby) self. (View Highlight)
- I suppose there’s a way to look at all of my walking in Japan: A rendering of gratitude to a place for having made the thing that set me on a better path. I want to say thanks to a thing that is un-thankable (my neighbor, sadly, died of a heart attack before I could really thank him years later once I understood his gift). I want to elevate all those I encounter along the road because a long time ago I felt elevated by Link and his shields and swords and the Triforce. This sounds so simple, so dumb, but this is what’s so heartbreaking about this world of ours — it doesn’t take much to shift a child in ways that change their life for the better. (View Highlight)
- Most of the time we just walked. We’d see a mountain on the horizon and go climb it – projected on the wall in a dark room, us sitting on beanbags on the floor. In the game we’d build a fire, marvel at the stars, sleep our character until dawn, wake to catch the sunrise. It was always a walk worth taking. (View Highlight)
- The moment I stepped into Minami Dani, alone, I felt an intense triptych of experience splayed before me. There was the reality of Minami Dani itself, but then there was the reality of so many scenes projected on that wall in that dark room, her by my side. Instantly I understood the provenance of the game’s color and light, textures and creatures. All of it pentimenti to what I stood before: The flitting dragonflies, the glancing sunbeams, the lush quality of green, the small ponds and once old — now dilapidated — stone bridges. But then, also, there was the memory of me as that child, playing that first Zelda in two-dimensional overhead simplicity. In a flash these three experiences overlapped. I sensed an eerie parallelism. There were many lives to be lived, and here was this one, unfurling uniquely. Propelled by no small dollop of luck. It was as if I had been waiting to arrive at Minami Dani for over three decades, as if the childhood version of myself had found true love in the mystery and adventure of that schoolbus map and secretly set some far off marker. Suddenly, I had arrived, without knowing I had even been searching for this very place. (View Highlight)
- I told her about this place, this place that was just like the game. (We’d later visit together.) In telling her I was telling myself on the bus the same thing: This map you hold in your hands is out there, is a place to be walked, and this work — scrutinizing the landscape, sensing in your bones the goodness of knowing a thing in totality, sharing that knowledge, building, repeating, moving forward, believing in all these feelings — work that feels so small, in the end, gets you out, keeps you going, cracks it all open. (View Highlight)
title: “Walking Zelda”
author: “Craig Mod”
url: ”https://craigmod.com/ridgeline/157/”
date: 2023-12-19
source: reader
tags: media/articles
Walking Zelda
Metadata
Highlights
- I carried the official map of Hyrule folded in my back pocket. I opened and closed it so many times that my mom had to laminate the folds with scotch tape. It accrued that pleasing patina of a well-used and well-loved thing. The map, a totem of potential. I unfolded it on the bus to school, held tiny sermons in those greasy pleather seats to those who wanted to know where some item was hidden or the way through the enchanted forest. Blue ballpoint pen scribbles marked the precise blocks to bomb, the right waterfall to pass through. (View Highlight)
- Undeniably, distance has been bridged, and whether you like it or not, you are no longer who you once were. Or, rather, you are exactly who you once were, but hopefully with a better understanding of how not to let your lesser demons get the best of you. You can then, as a 40-year-old grown-ass adult, decide to buy an OLED Switch and install Zelda: Breath of the Wild and commit a silly amount of time to not just beating the game (of course) but to walking and exploring and communing with that other self, that on-the-school-bus self, that surrounded-by-fear (so much fear, violence, nearby) self. (View Highlight)
- I suppose there’s a way to look at all of my walking in Japan: A rendering of gratitude to a place for having made the thing that set me on a better path. I want to say thanks to a thing that is un-thankable (my neighbor, sadly, died of a heart attack before I could really thank him years later once I understood his gift). I want to elevate all those I encounter along the road because a long time ago I felt elevated by Link and his shields and swords and the Triforce. This sounds so simple, so dumb, but this is what’s so heartbreaking about this world of ours — it doesn’t take much to shift a child in ways that change their life for the better. (View Highlight)
- Most of the time we just walked. We’d see a mountain on the horizon and go climb it – projected on the wall in a dark room, us sitting on beanbags on the floor. In the game we’d build a fire, marvel at the stars, sleep our character until dawn, wake to catch the sunrise. It was always a walk worth taking. (View Highlight)
- The moment I stepped into Minami Dani, alone, I felt an intense triptych of experience splayed before me. There was the reality of Minami Dani itself, but then there was the reality of so many scenes projected on that wall in that dark room, her by my side. Instantly I understood the provenance of the game’s color and light, textures and creatures. All of it pentimenti to what I stood before: The flitting dragonflies, the glancing sunbeams, the lush quality of green, the small ponds and once old — now dilapidated — stone bridges. But then, also, there was the memory of me as that child, playing that first Zelda in two-dimensional overhead simplicity. In a flash these three experiences overlapped. I sensed an eerie parallelism. There were many lives to be lived, and here was this one, unfurling uniquely. Propelled by no small dollop of luck. It was as if I had been waiting to arrive at Minami Dani for over three decades, as if the childhood version of myself had found true love in the mystery and adventure of that schoolbus map and secretly set some far off marker. Suddenly, I had arrived, without knowing I had even been searching for this very place. (View Highlight)
- I told her about this place, this place that was just like the game. (We’d later visit together.) In telling her I was telling myself on the bus the same thing: This map you hold in your hands is out there, is a place to be walked, and this work — scrutinizing the landscape, sensing in your bones the goodness of knowing a thing in totality, sharing that knowledge, building, repeating, moving forward, believing in all these feelings — work that feels so small, in the end, gets you out, keeps you going, cracks it all open. (View Highlight)