Throughout my Peace Corps service, I have experienced different kinds of extremities. There are my literal extremities, hands and feet that feel the effects of the change in weather and temperature. They engage with the heat and the cold, whether it be kicking off blankets in the summer or being enclosed in layers of clothes during the winter. There is the abundance of fruit and vegetables in the warmer months when they fall off the branches and burst through the ground. Then comes winter when it’s hard to come by anything of color, surviving mostly off of potatoes and meat. Then there are the highest of the highs in happiness and some oceanic lows. The most recent extremity is the stark contrast of America and Georgia. The amenities that fall off the store shelves, the wide array of retail stores and the 45 and counting condiments for your indulgence. The land of the free, the land of infinite choice and option. Every store in Georgia carries the same goods, the same brand names and the same prices. Only one room is heated while the others are exchanging gusts of wind through the single-pane windows.
Extremities reach far and wide, but the trick comes down to valuing any middle ground that can be created, while relishing the ebb and flow. Here, there and back again.