A Very Wal-Mart Holiday

Finding Balance in a World Off Kilter………..

First off, one million apologies. I am sure many of my dedicated readers have been feeling a little off kilter themselves considering the tardiness of this month’s blog  !!!  But, seriously, I do apologize. I vowed to myself- however bit slightly- that I would turn in my blogs on time. The problem with being the boss is that you can change the rules any time you feel like it- so yes, I lack bit of discipline but am working on it!

Ok so Wal-Mart and Nissa?  For many of those who know me this is certainly an odd pairing, more than odd. I typically despise everything about Wal-Mart and the Wal-Mart model of business, yet every year around the holiday times, Wal-Mart comes into my life and teaches me a valuable lesson about balance, typically at a time when I could most use it. This is especially since right around the holiday time my life becomes lop-sided, just like the world is at times.   My schedule tends to be a full one, but no matter what I always want to take on more, I guess, in a way this is a type of gluttony really (which makes me cringe).  Wal-Mart, which isn’t exactly a stranger to gluttony, seems to have a way of showing me that I need a new focus and balance in my life, one with a little less gluttony.

My brother Olof and his wife Jenny live in Fair Grove, Missouri,  and Fair Grove is basically in the middle of nowhere, central USA. I have been traveling there for the Thanksgiving holiday each year for the last four years.  It’s been a great treat- not only do I get to see my brother and his family (Jenny, Leif, Svea & Ivin) but I get to go “country” for a weekend and move from the busy hustle and bustle city of New York to a very small town feel.

Fair Grove is certainly small with a population of 1200 people, but it is located about 20 miles outside of Springfield, Missouri- Missouri’s third largest and home of Brad Pitt FYI! Springfield is a city of about 157,630 residents versus Brooklyn which houses approximately 2.5 million (and NYC which houses 8.4 million). With that said, my standards even Springfield is miniscule in comparison.  Each year for Thanksgiving the same ritual occurs- the whole family comes and fetches me from the airport; we drive straight to Wal-Mart to buy all of our groceries for not only our Thanksgiving but our “weekend with Nissa” in general.  Many of the town’s residents, who know me by now, ask, “Why do you go to Wal-Mart? We have a few better grocery stores in Springfield, even a few organic ones…”  But the reality is that the area is somewhat limited, and Wal-Mart carries the majority of the items that are hard to find in the others.  In addition, the foot traffic in Wal-Mart (there are about 5 in Springfield alone) ensures that the produce moves quickly and therefore is much fresher.  It’s an odd feeling to be in the middle of the country where farms used to reign free and not have access to fresh produce…

Thus, we come back to my notion of balance.  I have to be open to the fact that wherever we are in life at any particular time, we must look at all possibilities as options, even some that we wouldn’t imagine we would take (i.e. shopping at Wal-Mart).  This simple, little concept I encounter around the culmination of each year shifts my perspective on life a little bit.  I come home from my Wal-Mart experience with a new understanding of balance, one which enables me to be open to doing things I do not normally do and accepting things that I do not normally accept.  My perspective broadens encompassing a greater understanding of the fact that I do not have all the answers and that the answers vary depending on the day, the location, and the frame of mind I am in (and that this applies to others as well).  So my typical hardcore views about Wal-Mart become more balanced when I understand that the country as a whole does not live as we do in NYC and that they do not have access to all we have here.  I am still a believer in trying to attain fresher produce and more local ingredients for all of our country and its inhabitants, but my more realistic viewpoint emerges allowing me to see reality more clearly and, therefore, be able to accomplish more for myself and others.