@39

Things change. I was just thinking of a small train station in a coastal village in France. Compared to the complexes of Paris, Roscoff had such a quaint station. In 2004, there were colorful flower boxes at the end of the track. I had just come off the ship and milled around the few, bored pigeons that puttered about. This gare was at the end of the line, not just a pit stop like almost every other station I've frequented in Europe. I was amazed that if I stayed on those tracks long enough, I would find myself in the City of Light. Today I learned that although it opened in 1883, Gare de Roscoff was ultimately shuttered by flooding on June 3, 2018 and remains boarded up to this day.

Sometimes it pains me to return to a warm memory to see how it has changed for the worse over time.

With regards to my own June 3, 2018, I look back and consider...well, the words I wrote that day (and speaks to a future 2020):

But, look: we've got a lot of sunshine out there...a lot of air to breathe...water...and with a little prep, there's food. Somewhere along the way, we fouled all of that and inserted scarcity into the system...thereby causing fear...thereby causing hate. We're more than that, much, much more.

But, I fail. I think how I can protect my little fiefdom, my little domain of a little king. It's far, far too easy to snarl at each other. It's far too easy to cling and tear down with gravity and entropy, than to lift up and build. There are a lot of broken people out there. By breaking you, I better me? What logic is this?
...
In the end, this tearing down of each other, whether in some silly, non-specific political anger...or a corporate ladder to nowhere nonsense...or the Hey Jealousy of bygones ago...or anything else really—including the clothes we root for, ultimately shows a lack of self-awareness and self-confidence. It is...a scarcity mindset that corrupts our body and our soul. And I'd make a guess, that it is the symptom of an old wound that we keep picking at instead of allowing it to heal. Or just low intelligence stemming from a head being at the business end of a tack hammer.

In this whole, body transformation thing of mine, it's more than just taking a six-pack off the shelf. It's about forging the character within as well, be the person that I want to be around, and as the Tim McGraw lyric goes, become "a friend a friend would like to have."

What I Have Found in My Front Yard

When I've launched off a series of successful Expeditions in the past, I by far have had greater wind in my sails. Today, I limp forward with two swollen feet, my door prize from this past weekend's yard adventures.

I really dislike yardwork. You're either sitting on the steps of heat exhaustion, being stung by yellow jackets, wincing from fire ant bites or scratching from poison ivy running all up and down your leg.

Somewhere along the way, folks thought short grass was a good idea. Guess they figured they were back in the old country and wanted a few rounds of golf. I reckon we can chalk it up to folks wanting to look like other folks who—you guessed it—want to look like them in turn! It's just one big ol' game of ping-pong until somebody else comes up with something new to do.