Cattle Ranchers and Grilled Cheese

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been on the road driving through 13 different states throughout the South and Midwest and making my way across the Plains and the Rockies. I had the privilege of spending quality time visiting with quite a few people I’ve never met before and was reminded of how differently we humans experience life and the world around us.

If you’re a cattle rancher in Dallas, Texas you spend your days solving very different problems (handling feral pigs who dig holes on your property that trip up your cattle) than a home contractor does in Madison, WI (determining how to lay a concrete slab deep enough into the earth so that it won’t crack in the winter).

If you’re a homeowner in a town of 850 people on a lake in Minnesota, you’re likely to be concerned about the low water levels this summer. Whereas if you live in downtown Memphis, you may be highly concerned about the profound effect of the pandemic on people in poverty.

If you’re an aspiring, college-aged basketball player in North Platte, NE you may be considering very different educational opportunities than if you grew up playing in Bloomington, IN, where the first-ever televised basketball game was played.

Since arriving home in California, I’m finding it pretty incredible that we all get along as well as we do given the real challenges we face as individuals and communities, and how extremely varied those challenges are.

I know that spending just that small amount of time connecting with folks outside of my normal circles and doing so in places that at times felt quite foreign, has broadened my perspective and heightened my appreciation for the incredible people who call our country home.

(I also know that I need to take a break from French fries, root beer, grilled cheese sandwiches, and hotel lobby breakfasts.)

I hope you are able to experience meeting someone and/or seeing someplace new this summer and that it broadens your perspective and inspires you, too.

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“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” – Maya Angelou

“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.” – James Michener

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Happy Thursday!

Love,

Molly