Right now, in the states, we are buried chin deep in bantering back and forth about what label or party is right or wrong. I can't help but think it's all wrong. A couple years ago I traveled outside of my comfort zone on a road trip farther than I ever wanted to for a reason I never wanted. It was amazing seeing so much of the country I live in within such a short amount of time, but I wasn't fully able to take it all in and digest it at the time.
Since then, the experiences I had on that trip have settled in and resonated. The biggest thing I realized was how different one area of this beautiful country is from another. It was culture shock. I wondered why there were no actual trees. And I realized how many folks looked at me and my travel companions as if we were the ones out of place. I work with people all over the country and even the world in my business. I've talked with wonderful people with thick southern accents, even a friend with an Australian accent. I probably have that to thank for the ability to communicate a little easier with cashiers, waitresses, and others on that trip. I was a little better at pronouncing some syllables clearer than my natural Pennsylvania accent, and better at following the southern accent when my mom could not.
Accents weren't the only thing I noticed. It was January and we ended up in Texas. Some joked we brought the snow with us. While our vehicle was well suited for the white stuff, we were taken aback by how many vehicles were doing donuts in the middle of the highway in front of us, behind us. All I could do was hope none of those people slammed into us and think "get off the brakes, please get off your brakes!" Up here, we do donuts on back roads for fun sometimes in the wet slippery snow. One big no-no, when not trying to do donuts, is slamming on the brakes. It's a learned thing to fight that instinct, I suppose.
I was also shocked that they had tiny itty-bitty little trucks running the roads dumping sand to help with traction. Sand...okay, maybe not too bad of an idea. Salt is rather filthy and it sure doesn't freeze as hard down there. But the trucks were smaller than the ones we have running our tiny township roads and theirs were on the highway. True, we are accustomed to the threat of feet of snow for a couple months a year. From what we were told, they get an occasional brush with winter for a few hours here and there.
I learned that my state does not have the worst roads of the connected 48 states. I learned that each state and every person has their very own beauty. I learned that I absolutely adore these gentle mountains I live in and the varieties of trees that can stand 80 to 100 feet tall. And I learned that we are one enormously diverse country, and I saw only a small fraction of it. It is an amazing thing that we have existed in harmony for so long. So what has happened? I've watched harmony slip. Every incident is a need to change the whole of society, but which way, and which way is right?
Maybe we've forgotten that we are all different. Some have looked to government to give order to it all and put people in their place. Some order is needed, no doubt about it, but we can't forget just how widely diverse we all are. What is best for someone in Dallas Texas is not going to work the same for someone in a town with a recorded population of a few hundred that includes miles of farms and homesteads that go back to the 1800s in the Pennsylvania mountains. Businesses in the rural town might not cost as much to run, or bring in as much profit, as one in Dallas. What works for a single mother in Detroit might not be any help whatsoever to a single mother from the tiny town in PA. It's not about being racist or small minded. It's about being aware that we are all so wildly different from one area to another, from one state to another, even just from the bigger cities to the rural farmlands just thirty miles away. Our needs are different. Our beliefs and way of life are different. Not better, not worse, just different. Why can we not respect this of each other? Why do we argue and bash as our world gets smaller, trying to make everyone fit into what a few deem is correct?
Accepting our differences, respecting each other without labels or arguments of who is wrong or right, if we could accomplish such tasks, would help bring about a calming of our world.
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