On the drive back from the airport in Boston I stare out the window at all the trees zipping by out the window. On long car rides I used to stare out the window and imagine I was watching myself soar over the trees. This is something I don't do in Wyoming. Dense trees are replaced by distant mountains, too far to imagine myself flying to.
Experiences differ for every traveler, all I know is my time shared between these two drastically different regions.
I walk through a grocery store in my hometown in Massachusetts, and everyone is walking the same speed as me. People speed and weave between folks with their freight-train carts, daring anyone to get in their way. Heads are lowered, carts are filled with tricolored quinoa and organic bananas. The store resembles a beehive of sorts, except no one is really working towards a common goal, it's about individual pursuits. Long lines bring disgruntled sighs, and smartphones are used as time wasters until it's time to check out.
Doing the same thing in a small town in Wyoming, I feel like everything is in slow motion. A woman reaches for a sack of potatoes, looking like she was doing tai chi. Two cowboys stand in front of the meat counter making idle chat. An elderly woman clutches an orange for a lengthly stretch of time, looking at it with suspicion.The line at the register is long, the cashier chats with the customer with mutual interest. People waiting in line seem to be content.
I find myself constantly fascinated by the differences of these two places that to me is most apparent in the grocery store. What really fascinates me is the way in which people from each area view the other. When I talk with people from back home in MA about my travels, they say how they want to go out west, how I'm so lucky, how they wish they could live out west. When I mention MA to westerners, many talk about how they could never live there, and how things are better in the west. Of course there are people in each place who don't feel this way and people who fall somewhere in the middle, but in my experience, one place yearns for the other, and the other is content with staying put. This puzzles me because people seem to want what they don't have, so why is it that one place is content with their current place, while the other is not? Is it because it is better? I don't think so. Both of these places are equally unique and beautiful in my eyes. So what could it be?
Maybe, just maybe, this is due to options. Options - having more versus less. (When discussing this, I am talking very generally and theoretically, and in my own experience. There are extremes on each side, which is what I am exploring). Having options seems like a great thing from the surface. The more, the better, right? Having many options can be a big positive. Having the ability to choose whatever life we want to have, and molding it to closely resemble our ideal is a wonderful privilege, and one that many do not have. However, when living in a place that on the surface has everything - wants and desires lose their strength. The wants become quenched so easily, which opens the can for bigger and never ending desires that leave the current reality endlessly inadequate.
In suburban New England, I can drive 10 minutes to the store and pick up a vegan red-velvet cupcake, or go to a tea house where I can sit on big cushions and try over 50 different varieties of loose leaf tea. I can drive into Boston and go to a museum on practically any subject, or sit at one of the hundreds of coffee shops and people watch. If I'm feeling the mountains, I drive an hour or so to New Hampshire, and an hour or so to Cape Cod for the beach. I can meet someone from every country, from every background. When I come home, I feel drunk on the options and diversity. When I was growing up here, I didn't see it this way to this extent. It took leaving and coming back to see the opportunity here. Growing up, I was always looking outside my current place. I looked to Alaska, Montana, California, Costa Rica, Scotland, Italy... And I felt desire. I wanted more, I needed to see more, even though I already had so much. There is nothing wrong with wanting more, but it is important to also see the beauty of where you currently are, and continuing to view it with open eyes as if you are a traveler seeing its nuances for the first time. When wanting more and craving the new becomes an unquenchable thirst or a rolling landslide down an endless slope, this is what leads to dissatisfaction that stays with you no matter what changes you do. I still do look elsewhere to new places to explore and things to do, but not with the feeling of inadequacy. Changing want to wonder is a gentle shift that can do wonders for living a satisfied life. Of course there are some circumstances where an aggressive feeling of want is necessary to reach certain goals and change current injustices, but to live life in a constant state of want can leave one feeling never truly content.
In a small town in Wyoming, there are no coffee shops for me to sit at the window and watch the world outside. Aside from one or two restaurants in town, there are no bustling places to go out to eat and meet friends, definitely no vegan places for hundreds of miles. Forget a day at the beach, or a Himalayan salt room cave. New faces in town are noticed, and the staggering majority are white. What I can do here is drive up to the mountains and go on a hike, not seeing a soul the whole time. I can find an odd amount of pleasure in looking for wood at the base of a mountain for the fireplace, and spending the whole afternoon doing just that. I can go to a cute pottery-painting shop in town, the only one of its kind, and paint with friendly faces. The lack of things is no lack at all when you don't measure things in terms of quantity. It makes activities in town all the more special, and forces you to create your own adventure outside of which society provides - such as established restaurants or activity centers. Perhaps the smaller scope of urbanization, and the lack of establishments that come with it, decreases the amount of options one has and simultaneously heightens the pleasure of options that one does have, while opening things up to a myriad of self-created options.
People can become overwhelmed by too many choices, and loose appreciation for what they have. Simultaneously, one could become unmotivated and uninspired if there is too little stimuli. Regardless of economic background, the places that we put ourselves in can have such an impact on how we view our lives. Rich or poor, the density of establishments and options will still impact us. The answer may seem to be a perfect place that holds a balance of options, but I don't think that is realistic. I think that the answer lies within ourselves and not our surroundings, to a certain extent. If we work on mastering our balance of want with satisfaction internally, the external won't have such a big impact. By understanding our own unique pattern of dissatisfaction and wants, we don't fall into the pattern of our surroundings as easily, and we can be independent of it.
My dad can spend hours in the yard, getting lost in trimming the shrubs, repotting plants, putting mulch down, chopping wood, or just walking around the yard. This may seem to be the opposite of the picture I painted of busy busy New England. I know of a few people in small town Wyoming who have the travel bug and love to dive into a new culture. My broad take on these two differing places is based off of the overall feeling I get from each place, which may surely change as I gain even more experience and exposure. I love the idea of staying constantly fluid, open to new ideas and opinions, and not creating an opinion of anyone or anything and never allowing yourself to change it. View every person in every place as a blank slate, and let their actions fill in the blankness. Painting someone's slate before they get the chance to is a true injustice, and dampens our ability to understand the complexity of individuals.
The west, and New England - Both such different places, but both holding so much beauty in both the landscape and its people. I am still learning about the complexities of each place, and I hope that I never stop. Wherever I go, I hope to always listen, watch, wonder, question, and always see the unique beauty in every place.