“Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.”

It's not that I don't have any intelligent thoughts of my own. Honestly...

Today, Jamie and Breanna head off to Scotland then back to Canada next week, Tim returns to Southsea and Laurie and Irene are Somewhere Along The Appalachian Trail Somewhere In America Somewhere.

My world is spacious. The kids make the latitudes and longitudes. My friends across the world do too.

But nobody ever seems very far away at all. Modern technology - yes, rant and rave all you like about how it has ruined our lives, reduced our attention span to 140 characters, made us lose the ability to communicate...

For me, from this little room, my office,  thanks to e-mail, Facebook, Skype...my beloved children are no more than a click away. The world is as small as it is spacious.

In a way, John Donne knew this in the early part of the 17th Century...

And now good morrow to our waking soules,

Which watch not one another out of feare;

For love, all love of other sights controules,

And makes one little roome, an every where.

Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

Let Maps to other, worlds on worlds have showne,

                        Let us possesse one world; each hath one, and is one.

Clever fellow, John Donne...oh, and Thoreau too.