I grew up with maps in an odd sort of way. About the time that I was ten, my mother wallpapered my bedroom with National Geographic maps. At the same time, I got my first telescope; and astronomy for beginners is all about mapping the sky. In fact, for me, it still is. My wife and daughter bought me a telescope for my birthday a couple of years ago, and I was happy to find Turn Left at Orion by Br. Guy Consolmagno. A Ph.D. astronomer who taught at MIT, he did not know the sky from his own back yard.

On one wall of my office right now, I have a National G map of the heavens, and a periodic table of the elements.

In fact, in addition to the classic layout of the periodic table that we all recognize, you can find several other arrangements. (Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alterna... but also others online such as this discussion http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2009/04...

(And, as I used the word arrangements, perhaps we can have a discussion under a different topic about music as a language.)

I checked this book out from my local branch library after our discussion here in the Gulch, "Most People 'Think' in Pictures - Do You?" (here https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post... )

Completing my master's in 2010, I took two graduate classes in geography: cartography and remote sensing. One fact that was painfully obvious to me was that my classmates from undergraduate courses in mapping were ahead of the curve, even though I "knew more about computers." I learned the menus quickly, but my maps, despite the flourishes, were not finessed. Theirs were. It takes some talent and learning to communicate well graphically, just as it does to write or speak well.

And regarding speaking, I talk with my hands -- and, no, I did not grow up ethnically Italian. I do not know if I have "always" done that, but, in adult life, working as a content trainer, and often giving lectures at club meetings and conventions, I quickly abandoned the four wrong ways to stand: "fig leaf", parade rest, attention, and hugging the lectern.

"You want to frame your internet search [hands up, index fingers and thumbs make Ls] with the most important words."