How Wide is the Ocean?

I just started taking an art class locally. It’s nothing like the art classes of my past, where everyone’s painting realism. This one is quite abstract. I am surprisingly painting the most realistic pieces in the class even though technically they are not realism. I guess since that’s pretty much all I have painted, it’s difficult to break away.

Well I began working on my next painting today. It’s a large world map in watercolor. Obviously not to exact scale, so as to achieve the whimsical style I am aiming for. After I finished sketching it on the large textured paper, my teacher came over to discuss it. I pointed out that I accidently made Russia too small. Oops. She suggested I add more to the North to make it larger. I think I died a little bit when she told me that I didn’t have to paint every tiny land mass. Which is going to be quite difficult for my realism brain. I can just hear the outrage of leaving off someone’s country, but they will most likely never see this map unless they come over to my house and find it on my upstairs wall. But what struck me the most was the comment that she made about the Atlantic Ocean. She says that I made it too big. It doesn’t look or feel to wide to me, but I am the one with my language, my food, and most of all, a piece of my heart with the people I love, still across it.

So my question for you is what are your wide oceans? Are they crossable, even though they may seem larger than the Atlantic Ocean? What will you do to cross them, while staying right where you are? Because even though you might miss what’s on the other side, doesn’t mean you’re not meant to be right where you are standing.