It's 9AM
You’re quiet, she sounded surprised.
I was.
We were bumper to bumper on the 10 heading toward a tourist stop before a hop, skip and car filled jump down to LAX.
And I was practicing what one of you reminded me of weeks ago.
Patience.
Using the other drivers as a test of sorts.
No need to point out any of their habits, reasoning skills or wonder aloud why they chose to do what they did.
No need to bore anyone in the car with the reasons for the back up.
It was Los Angeles and we were told to expect traffic.
Woo. Sah.
I was instead using the time to notice the cars and trucks and SUV’s.
All close to the same make, model and type.
Not a fashion trend or a keeping up with the Jone’s kind of thing.
Nope, a four door Toyota Camry looks a lot like a four door Nissan Altima looks a lot like a Ford Focus and close enough to a Chevy Malibu that in the dark, it would be hard to tell apart from a distance.
Same with trucks. They almost all look alike.
Same with boxy SUV’s that grew sleek by the year and called it a change.
Like one designer came up with the concept and different artists drew the execution.
All basically the same.
The differences came in the little details.
A hump.
A curve.
A little twist that tried to set it apart from the competition.
But on a whole, all the same.
The high end luxury cars were the exception that proved the rule, but even a Ferrari and Lambo and Vette look a lot alike but for the symbol on the hood.
Almost the same.
Which made me ponder while practicing patience using forty five of my precious minutes to go five miles.
We’ve got homeless in Little Rock and in Pine Bluff.
A lot in Orlando and in Dallas.
We’ve got high rent and high crime and corrupt politicians who think they know best.
Or are they inept, which is worse.
Every single problem I could consider with one foot hovering above the brake is the same from West Coast to East, and I would bet in a lot of towns, villages and cities across the country.
Except for the humps.
Except for the curves.
The little variations to the problem that make them think it’s unique to the region, to the area, to us.
It’s our problem, but not my problem.
I didn’t think I could solve homelessness sitting in traffic.
Or inflation.
Or income gaps between Toyota’s and Lambo’s.
I was just considering the sameness of it all.
The traffic on the bridge in Downtown LR was just as bad as the back up on the 10 in LA.
Give or take an hour and the time of day.
Which made me wonder and made me think that if there are solutions to the problems, and there almost always are solutions to overcome obstacles, that focusing on how to fix them is probably a better use of time than bitching about it.
Find a way.
Or make one.
And keep your hand off the horn.
Funny what practicing a little patience can do for the mind.
Now if I could only spend time thinking about the fastest way to load people on a plane…
What is your best sideways thinking plan?
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PLUS
You have nailed it my friend. I spent years traveling the country. I have lived in or traveled through all 50 states. The sameness is there, if you look. Every big city, every freeway. The difference came like a shocking cold glass of water to the face when you left the big cities. Nature, the rural America. It's beauty and differences are stark from place to place. God's paint brush at work. Each small town a unique adventure. There is kindness there, you will rarely find in a big city. There is a kind of welcome home attitude that permeates the air. The hills and mountains all have their own stories to tell. History of pioneers that is the root of America that some people have lost touch with.