the distance

Liberia feels so remote today. I know what the past days would have been like at home. My dad would be watching CNN or some other news channel, constantly tapped into a feed of information about Obama or McCain or whatever was going on. We would have been talking about it at dinner, Daddy grinning from the head of the table as he shared his latest tidbits. And yesterday? The computers would never have slept. (Correct me if I'm wrong, here, folks.) Or maybe it's the IPhone now. I'm so far removed I'm not even sure what technology is in my house these days.

Instead. I sat on a ship off the coast of West Africa. I watched burned copies of new-to-me episodes of The Office. I took a walk on the dock, and I went to bed. When I woke up, I stumbled upstairs to breakfast to see a ticker on a TV letting me know who my president is. And then I went to work.

I have no idea who this man is. I have had the same lack of information about McCain. I poke around on people's Flickr accounts and Facebook pages and see references to the inexpressible spectacle that was the election yesterday. People are drawing comparisons to JFK and MLK and moon landings. Where were you when you heard? Just like Princess Di and 9-11, it's something no American is going to forget anytime soon.

Except me. Because I wasn't there. I missed it.

Which isn't such a bad thing, necessarily. It just underscores the distance.