Just thinkin'

I have a globe in my bedroom that Mom got me way back in third grade, when I was just learning about cities and states and countries. Sometimes at night, I'd trace the land masses or lay my hand over the whole of the oceans and seas. Sometimes my fingers slid up and down the bumps that were supposed to be mountain ranges, or I'd memorize funny facts to tell Mom and Dad. The North American oceans have three syllables each. At-lan-tic. And Pa-cif-ic. But the Med-i-ter-ra-ne-an Sea goes on and on.

Before I went to bed, I'd twirl my globe hard so the blues blurred and the continents ran into each other. I'd close my eyes and point, hoping that my finger would hit some strange sounding place. Like Siam. Or Venezuela. What would it be like to be from these places. To live there. To move there. Experiencing everything diffrent. To be someone diffrent?