She is round and fluid in a long floral skirt and a salmon-colored short-sleeve shirt. She drinks coffee, and her gaze flits over the room. Her lips are thin but sweet, smiling when anyone speaks.

She talks about far-off places. Places I’ve never been. Places I’ve seen pictures of but never smelled—something intimate, more tangible, when you can smell where you’re at.

For a moment, I wish I was her. Imagine me boarding the plane, finding my seat, preferably next to the window, traveling the great distance for a grand new experience.

Maybe I’d find a nugget of truth I can’t find here. I wonder if my completeness is dependent on where I reside? I ponder this as my eyes follow her sips and the trail of her flowing skirt.

Soon the feeling passes, my wish to be somewhere other than where I’m at. I am comfortably and lovingly tethered to my life here, in these mountains. However, a vacation may be in order, not an untethering, just a supplementary outing.

Prudent and sound, I could set up a savings account just for getting over there, wherever, whenever, to maybe or not to find a nugget of me buried in foreign dirt.

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