The Error in Errands

***This post contains material that may be overly sentimental. Please use caution as you read***

I'm back from my week away and I must say it was breathtaking being driven around to all the wonderful places I was able to see via the unparalleled smooth ride of a Toyota Camry automobile. It may seem cliché by now, but I can't emphasize how much of a luxury it is to be able to be able to travel with such freedom in a country so vast and beautiful; to see friends hundreds of miles away within just a couple of hours of air conditioned luxury. To visit with them and to hear their laughter and see their faces as we roast marshmallows over a fire pit on a mountainside far from the populations of the great city is to be in heaven. These are the things that email or video conferencing or digital photography cannot capture. These are the real moments that technology may never be able to replace.

Today I went about my routine of driving in to drop off the beast and begin my routine of busing in and out. I had to run an errand today and it precluded me from catching the bus home. The realities of a 30 pound box of finely sculpted technology that needed delivering to a friend pretty much limited my mobility and I found it disturbing that I was unable to accomplish this using the bus in a timely or even safe manner. My unwieldy package would have been a nuisance, not to mention at risk of damage due to the fragile contents during a two mile hike to the bus stop.

My heart immediately went out to those whose only transportation limits their acts of charity and kindness for both friends and family. The feeling of helplessness must be incredible to those who are the responsible bread winners of their family. I imagined a father, struggling to pay the bills and still get to the store to pick up last minute supplies for his child's science project; a daughter with an elderly mother in need of her prescription as she misses her connecting bus, delaying much needed relief to an unavoidable ailment or an unknown genius failing to get the job that would have discovered his greatness and instead, led to a job closer to home in which his invention would remained trapped forever in the prison of his brilliant mind. His ideas discarded on the backs of fast food napkins stained with the smudges of the day's meal.

The world, once shrunk by the availability of cheap and easy transportation, is beginning to grow ever larger again as our visits become less and less frequent and the distances become greater and greater. Perhaps in the end we'll cherish the moments we do have more than ever and be all the more richer for them.