The news this week stilled my hand as I was about to click “Publish” on week eleven’s life-work balance blog.

The United States is out of balance. We seem to be a nation of “or” not “and.” Red or blue? 1% or 99%? Urban or rural? Coast or middle? Latin or Black or Asian or American Indian or White or….?

I find myself quietly looking for the “ands” amidst the divisions. She and He and They. Suburbs and city.  Employed and unemployed. “And” enables communities beyond the sum of their parts. “Or” makes us less than the sum of our parts.

What, after all, is a beach but the sum of billions of grains of sand?

NH Beach