What a better country if we also had infrastructure for travel. 🥲
US vs Europe
@CinnamonGirlE We once did. There were at least train lines that crisscrossed the country, and many cities had robust street car lines.
Now we have amtrak, and ireggular bus service. It seems in some ways that our quest for progress ended in regression in some ways.
Define Irony.
@NiveusLepus
I know. Sometimes it seems for every step forward, we take two steps back.
@CinnamonGirlE People talk about the wonders of the body, the genius of nature, when in reality, evolution is a jury rig of a jury rig... What works best to get just over the line and survive.
To put it another way, nothing is perfect, and collectively so often one can only focus on getting by that its rather difficult to look up and see where it's all going until its to late.
Have you ever seen the cartoons where they are laying track in front of a train franticly? Life is kind of like that.
@NiveusLepus
I know. Kind of like we all start out with grand schemes and plans for life. Then life happens. And we do what we have to. It's a hard push to swim upstream.
@NiveusLepus
Only aging allows us to do that. I dance around the kitchen and still feel 17. That girl is frozen in time. She still lives in me. But her container looks quite different these days. And after a lot of losses; I finally understand how I had better appreciate every single second.
It's another paradox. My Aunt Karen and I corresponded by email back and forth, I'm a novelist, she was a therapist and a proofreader/editor for my Uncle's works so we'd really get deep and send the pages, sometimes taking more than a month to reply.
As she was dying of cancer, I wrote about how there was a conceit there would always more time. Later on, she wrote that she was nearing her end, and as I was writing my reply, she passed.
Talk about underling a point...
@NiveusLepus
So sorry for your loss. I am happy you were able to correspond with some deep conversations and memories to carry.
@CinnamonGirlE She was a good and groovy soul. Paula, in Dawnbreak, was a bit of a tribute to her.
You're very kind, but I was quite lucky to know her for the time she was here. Of course I miss her presence, but I know miss her because of the outsized impact she made on my life.
The wonderful blessing of having good people in one's life is more than worth the grief of their passing.
@NiveusLepus
It definitely is. The people I have loved and lost changed me for the better. I was fortunate to have had them.
And now fortunate to have the ones I do.
@CinnamonGirlE In my head, it still feels like I'm in my 20s, and its a regular surprise that I'm near 44 and that those times were 20 years ago.
It's not getting any better. It's a strange kind of time dilation. Time seems like it's going to go on forever, all the while I know it is ticking down. It's a paradox of perception.
Meanwhile, things seem to be moving faster, as I, very gradually, slow down. Slowly I've begun to understand how fast it all slips by.