Abundance

This morning at our last breakfast in California for a few months Jay and I were reflecting on the Bay Area we were leaving, where we had each spent so much of our lives.  Jay said, it isn’t a place of abundance.  I was taken aback – there is so much stuff here – but in a moment, I understood what he meant.  There’s a great difference between lots of stuff and abundance.  There isn’t enough water, there are never enough lanes of freeway to prevent traffic jams, there doesn’t seem to be enough space for all the people who live there.  There’s wonderful diversity, but we pay for it in the road rage of over crowded freeways, in driving around in search of parking places, in waiting in lines for nearly everything.  The huge grocery stores with their amazing varieties of stuff don’t have the sense of abundance that the farmers’ market in Cooperstown has.  There, the little Mennonite girls shell peas behind the counter where their moms sell produce and pies.  Abundance isn’t about lots of stuff, for me, it’s about stuff on a human scale, stuff clearly connected to the earth, stuff that’s easy to access, stuff that’s delightful.

We left the crowded Bay Area this morning and crossed the State line into Nevada at 10:20.  The road is familiar, and mostly easy.  East of Reno we were down to two lanes of Interstate 80 in each direction most of the time.  And there was plenty of room in those four lanes for the cars that wanted to travel there.  There’s tons of open space in Nevada – an exhausting amount.  But without water, without trees, it doesn’t feel at all like a place of abundance.  It feels like a place to get through, not a place to linger.  The few towns seem dismal.

The drive was tiring, but we’re good travelers.  Charlie and Hazel have the back seat, and once I had Hazel’s travel case properly covered she was quiet and content.  Jay and I fall easily into the travel groove, chatting a little, letting the miles slip by quietly. And now the first day is behind us.  Sleeping in Wells, NV tonight and heading for Cheyenne, WY in the morning.