CHAOS & CLARITY: Seeing America Through Someone Else’s Eyes

Movement, Perspective, and Who You Become in Motion

There’s a different kind of travel — the kind where you’re not just going somewhere, you’re showing somewhere.

It’s different to see the world alone.
It’s different to see it with family.
But seeing your own country through the eyes of someone who has never experienced it? That’s something else entirely.

We crossed states. We crossed deserts. We crossed skylines.
NASA.
Vegas.
Los Angeles.
The long railroad line of the Southwest Chief — carving through Arizona and New Mexico like a moving time capsule.
Chicago’s return.
Then the curve back toward Milwaukee.

And later — New Jersey, the world’s largest Hindu temple, and New York in all its messy, complicated modern glory.

But what surprised me wasn’t the travel.
It was what I noticed about myself in the process.

Travel asks different things of you when you’re responsible for someone else’s experience. It asks for your patience. Your curiosity. Your presence. Your leadership. Your flexibility. Your willingness to slow down and speed up at the same time.

It forces you to pay attention — not to the postcard view, but to the inner view.

What am I holding together?
What am I letting go of?
Where do I get frustrated?
Where do I get energized?
What parts of myself show up when I’m in motion?
And what parts disappear?

There’s clarity in that.
The kind you don’t get from a journal.
The kind that only comes when you’re moving.

Some people travel to escape their lives.
Some travel to expand their lives.

This summer, I traveled to understand mine.