Away from home thoughts.

I’m on a job in Baltimore, Maryland, as I write this. Grateful for the work, grateful I can be part of a friend’s dream, grateful to meet new people, to travel. The place that I’m staying, however, gives me a creeping claustrophobia. It’s not unclean, the service is fine, all the people who work here are kind and attentive. It’s the surroundings. I’m in a Marriot Hotel nestled on the outskirts of Baltimore, a community called Hunt Valley. Just down the hill from where I’m staying is the Hunt Valley Mall and between the hotel and the mall are peppered buildings, constructions of cement and glass identical to many other communities across the nation. In fact, if I woke up with amnesia this morning and walked out side, I’d be hard pressed to tell anyone where I was. It could be Indianapolis, Indiana or Burbank, California. The architecture is all THE SAME. The malls stores are all THE SAME as they would be in Arizona or Utah – Best Buy, Panera Bread, California Pizza Kitchen, Regal Cinemas. Maybe for some people, maybe most people, I don’t know, comfort is gotten from such homogenized surroundings, but I find it hard to breathe around it. I feel a creeping claustrophobia by the SAMENESS of EVERYTHING!! ‘Am I crazy?!’ I wonder. No one else seems bothered by this robotic life style creeping into every arena of their lives. And I don’t want to get all Cassandra/Chicken Little about all of this, but it seems to have some kind of relationship to all the deadening that surround us more and more and more – processed foods, chemical fertilizers, Monsanto, genetically modified whatevers, industrialized agriculture, fossil fuel dependency, consume, consume, consume. Okay, I am getting all Cassandra about this and I really just wanted to note it and put it down. It does make me miss Vermont where, for the most part, there’s a chance at holding on and preserving some of the old ways, making them new and renewable again. Being closer in touch with the natural, the sustainable. Some times I do feel I live in a mad world where the solutions to certain problems or challenges seem so obvious and easy and nevertheless are ignored. The challenge is how to first, breathe, breathe, become aware of whatever it is I’m upset about, then to accept the situation, hold back anger and reactivity, and, taking in everything, decide upon a plan of action. How can I best help the world I live in? How do I wake up more to the challenges that surround me? How can I best use my talents to bring about change? And not confrontational, in your face, I know better and you’re an unevolved idiot change, but a kind, gentle, calm, and many times indirect change that may take years to bring about. To intend patience and commitment and clarity to a cause. It’s easy to rail. It’s easy to get riled up and blame and bluster. I can certainly fall prey to that. It’s also easy to hide away and not be part of the world. How to be part of the world and not at the mercy of its whims and seductive mood swings. Hmmm? How to be fully alive to it all?