I was watching a movie the other day and a scene followed the main character driving in the snow on the way to work. It kind of floored me; I’ve definitely never done that before. It may have been bitterly cold and lightly snowing on my morning commute riding the Beijing subway once or twice, but it wasn’t the Chicago snow depicted in this film.

California’s winter weather couldn’t be more different—I routinely wear a tank top in December and January. But sixty degrees Fahrenheit is also nothing to Australia’s January weather. It was routinely over a hundred when I was there just before the pandemic started. Through my extended stay there, and come to think of it also, while I lived in Cape Town a decade ago, I never got used to the southern hemisphere’s opposite seasons.

These musings demonstrate how magnificent our planet is. Without travel to vastly different places, our environment becomes normalized. The Earth offers so much to explore and experience; it’s easy to take it for granted in modern life. But the majesty is there, if we open our eyes to this big beautiful amazing world.