I remember as a young girl I had one of those old fashioned globes of the world. Does anyone have one of those anymore? The ones with the topography in 3-D?
I used to spin it and barely touch it with the
palm of my hand, feeling the bumps and
ridges of the mountain ranges on my skin.
Then I would close my eyes and stop the
globe from spinning with my finger, open
my eyes and see where I landed.
Inevitably, I'd be in a body of water, but
once in a while, I'd end up somewhere
exotic, faraway and more often than not,
in Africa - Djibouti, Lesotho, Malawi.
The other day, I sat in the passenger seat
of my husband's truck and we were at a
stoplight. I looked around me at that
moment and was struck with the immense
and overwhelming thought that in each of
the cars around me, in the baseball field
across the road, in the houses down the
street, were individual people with their
own lives, their own stories, their own
worries and troubles, their own achievements.
As a young girl I used to think the same
thoughts and be completely overwhelmed
when I looked at the globe. Every dot on
the globe represented hundreds of thousands,
even millions of individual lives. And here I
was. And who was I?
I just found out about live8 which
goes to show that my life is completely devoid
of world news at the moment. And why did it
take me so long to figure out what live8 meant?
Yes, I was born and I think in college when the
first Live Aid took place.
Here's another look at Live Aid from someone
who worked on the satellite component
of the worldwide show.
Anyway, I digress. Without my old world
globe from childhood, I feel more disconnected
from the world than ever. At least with the globe,
the entire world seemed so...tangible.
In my life right now, the whole world seems
so far away. And I hate that feeling.
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