Spaciousness

Spaciousness.  The roads feel wide!  The parking spaces have so much lee-way.  (It is a luxury to not always have to SQUEEZE out of my car because the door is only 1/2 way open.)  There are fields and fields that go on and on for acres as you drive through rural Wisconsin. Even in my own space I have both a front and a back yard to enjoy.  The flatness of Green Bay also lends itself to the feeling of spaciousness as the horizon seems to go on forever.

I actually didn't feel cramped in Hong Kong.  I got used to bustling streets with lots of people when we were in downtown HK.  And nature was plentiful on the Southside where we lived.  Yet, due to the mountains and the water, the buildings, and the closeness of it all, I never felt spaciousness.  Grandeur, yes.  Spaciousness, no.

Home entries and rooms are generally much larger than I have become accustomed to.  You know, those entries with a high ceiling and a spot to check yourself in the mirror before leaving?  That is new to me again.  It feels luxurious and somehow off to have all that space.

I notice even at grocery stores there is so much room in the aisle!  And the grocery carts are generally far larger in the US, too.  (Perhaps that leads to buying more groceries or goods?)  The grocery store near us was more the size and feel of an old general store or a little convenience store on the edge of a small town.  The aisles were close together and the shelves packed with a few of everything but not much of anything.  Not so here!  So much of everything and so much room to display it all.  Even two months living in Green Bay now, the grocery aisles seem huge and foreign to me.

In Washington DC we visited the monuments at the National Mall.  Now there is space!  So much space provided for each monument.  Even the national mall itself has held millions of people; it is that large.  And although it is a tourist attraction, there are far fewer people milling about than on a normal day in downtown Hong Kong.  This too makes spaces feel. . . well, spacious.

I suppose what I am saying is that I had become accustomed to spaces being smaller and closer and squished.  Neither is right or wrong, but it certainly is. . . different.  And something I've noticed upon re-entry. 

Wide lanes, wide roads, big sky, and spacious distance between Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial. Brent on the bridge as we walked across the Potomac River.