Tracing the Globe

My grandmother used to have this globe.

It stood regally in the corner of her spare bedroom
where my sister and I slept when we came to visit.
Two little girls, crouching on the floor and getting dust on the hems of their velvet Thanksgiving dresses.
Spinning the world around with chubby fingers and wide eyes, blue like the oceans.

When we went to sleep,
the globe would light up
Like a million little Eiffel Towers at Christmastime in Paris.
(Not that I would know, of course; Paris was a place I only saw in the frames on the walls of my dance studio).
No need for a night light when the Earth is glowing brightly over there.

Tip-toeing over to it,
I stare at all the fancy names
of towns I've never been to
in cities whose names I can't pronounce
in countries I never knew existed.
What a BIG world it is!
Russia alone is the length of my thumb to my pinky.

I whisper the names of those far-off places,
and each place has a flavor.
Some taste sweet like honey in my mouth.
Barcelona,
Sicily,
Princess Charlotte Bay.

Some are exotic and spicy, like the chai tea my mother makes me.
Thailand,
Argentina,
Guatemala.

Others just taste weird, like soda with all the bubbles gone.
Grootfonfein,
Farafangana,
Liechtenstein!
Do such places exist outside of Dr. Seuss' books?

I want to see these places.
I wonder what they look like when they are no longer words on a globe.

So I sit there in my blanket of darkness,
in the soft light of a world that casts playful shadows on my face.
I place one chubby little finger on a city dot;
the other finger on the dot of my hometown.
I trace the pathway between my fingers

then let my hands drop
and spin the world around
   faster
        and faster
                and faster.
Until everything is a blur, and the green and blue blend like watercolors in the rain
And the globe is just a world again.

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