It's (not such) a small world after all
I remember very distinctly flying from Dallas, Texas to Santiago, Chile. It was a long flight, through the night, over Central America and the ocean. I dozed on and off as the plane would bump up and down. When I was awake, I would look out the window and, at one point, I could see a very small light somewhere on the landscape miles below our cruising altitude. And I thought to myself, I wonder who lives there? What's there story? What is their name? Of course, I never will know them, nor will they know me. I will only remember that little light in a sea of darkness from 37,000 feet.
It is not the first time I thought about people living in what seemed to be completely different worlds from the one I lived in. When I was a kid, I stared out the window at the rows of house on the hillside in Scranton, Pennsylvania as my Dad drove us to Cape Cod. When I was a little older, I asked the same questions as I drove through rural Indiana and Illinois on my way to St. Louis. And just today, these thoughts occurred to me several more times as I completed day two in New Jersey.
I am in unfamiliar territory. My corner of the world is Central Ohio. I live in Gahanna, work in Blacklick, and can get you anywhere you need to go withing a two hour radius of there without a map, GPS, or directions. But here, here I am just another out of town contractor looking for work. This isn't home for me. Not even close. But for millions, this is their comfort zone. They know every back road, country road, and shortcut from Red Bank to Atlantic City much as well as I know my comfort zone in Ohio. And as I drove today through more storm ravaged areas, I wondered what all their stories might be? What did they lose in this storm? Did they hunker down when the hurricane made landfall or were they 1000 miles away, choosing to watch the destruction on CNN like the rest of the country rather than watching it first hand out of their living room windows? Every one of them, in every car, every home, every business I passed today, have their own story, just like me. Their facebook pages are filled with people I will never meet, each with their own stories and list of friends.
It amazes me that a world that seems so small at times can be so dauntingly big. Billions of people with billions of stories, each one as unique and different as any of ours. As for me, I am happy with my little corner of the world, where my story is set on a tiny piece of land in Gahanna, Ohio. And maybe, at some point, someone has driven by it and said "I wonder who lives there? What is there story?"
I will be in New York City Thursday running 3 appointments. Queens and Brooklyn in the same day, when i have never been in the Big Apple before. Should be tons of fun:)
Day # 589 and it is still good to be me............
Good night everyone
It is not the first time I thought about people living in what seemed to be completely different worlds from the one I lived in. When I was a kid, I stared out the window at the rows of house on the hillside in Scranton, Pennsylvania as my Dad drove us to Cape Cod. When I was a little older, I asked the same questions as I drove through rural Indiana and Illinois on my way to St. Louis. And just today, these thoughts occurred to me several more times as I completed day two in New Jersey.
I am in unfamiliar territory. My corner of the world is Central Ohio. I live in Gahanna, work in Blacklick, and can get you anywhere you need to go withing a two hour radius of there without a map, GPS, or directions. But here, here I am just another out of town contractor looking for work. This isn't home for me. Not even close. But for millions, this is their comfort zone. They know every back road, country road, and shortcut from Red Bank to Atlantic City much as well as I know my comfort zone in Ohio. And as I drove today through more storm ravaged areas, I wondered what all their stories might be? What did they lose in this storm? Did they hunker down when the hurricane made landfall or were they 1000 miles away, choosing to watch the destruction on CNN like the rest of the country rather than watching it first hand out of their living room windows? Every one of them, in every car, every home, every business I passed today, have their own story, just like me. Their facebook pages are filled with people I will never meet, each with their own stories and list of friends.
It amazes me that a world that seems so small at times can be so dauntingly big. Billions of people with billions of stories, each one as unique and different as any of ours. As for me, I am happy with my little corner of the world, where my story is set on a tiny piece of land in Gahanna, Ohio. And maybe, at some point, someone has driven by it and said "I wonder who lives there? What is there story?"
I will be in New York City Thursday running 3 appointments. Queens and Brooklyn in the same day, when i have never been in the Big Apple before. Should be tons of fun:)
Day # 589 and it is still good to be me............
Good night everyone
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