Getting around America

I know I have the luxury of traveling around the world, and trust me, I know it’s a luxury even as travel becomes more of a hassle day by day. But travel doesn’t have to mean across an ocean or around the globe. Many people live their entire lives in one country, one state or province, or even one county. Not everyone has the desire to get out and see the world when you have all your comforts right there within a short drive. 

My next trip is around the country that I call home, sometimes proudly and sometimes reluctantly, the US of A.

Living in New York, it’s hard to go to smaller cities, especially being someone who loves the hustle and bustle of fire trucks driving by at 3 in the morning and people’s car stereos blaring random songs that no one else wants to hear. But there is something to be said for the fact that no two cities are a like and no two kinds of people are a like. People from the south are very different from the north and people from the west coast are very different from the east coast. It’s a huge vast span of land and a huge vast span of people to fill it up.

Now, I have been all over the country before. I have lived in the southeast, the southwest, the northwest and the northeast.  But I am starting to see things in a different way. Starting to see things with different eyes.

I’m sitting in my window exit row of this Continental ERJ Jet, looking out at the sprawl of Virginia we are passing over. Bays from end to end each filled with beaches that look like they are completely untouched by nature. Waves and swathes of current and tide swirl through out the waters. Nothing moves, everything is completely still, yet there is a constant movement to it. Everything is so much more peaceful from 25,000 feet, and then turbulence hits.

Not to get too deep with this, but I just read this and it’s beautifully said.

“Time is always moving, minute by minute and second by second.  As time moves on, so do our lives. Nobody can stop this movement. However, one thing is in our own hands, and that is whether or not we waste the time we have; whether we use it in a negative way or a constructive way. The passage of time through which we live our lives is the same for all of us and there is also a basic equality between those of us who are a part of this time. The difference lies in our state of mind and motivation. “  - Tenzin Gyatso, XIV The Dalai Lama