what's up?

mirror thoughts, still undecided

Today’s picture shows you a lake, early in the morning, seen shortly after sunset in France, in a very remote area. We got up early as it was a long tour and we wanted to get over the mountains before noon, and started cycling into the sun rising over the hills, leaving a little town that contrary to many villages and little towns in France was still “intact”: Little grocery shops, a restaurant, a bar, a boulangerie, a boucherie, you name it.

We have seen many villages where the grocery shop does not exist anymore. You can still get your bread there, but that’s about the only thing you can get without jumping into a car and riding towards the next center, where there is a super U, a Casino or another chain’ store. There, super cooled down, you find everything: Pineapple from Guatemala, plastic stuff from China, apricots from France, chocolate from Switzerland, sun protection lotion from Germany. You name it. And as all the grocery stores around the center died, because of the center, and the other way round, you have lots of traffic; cars coming and going. And trucks. And children crying and adults in arguments because shopping is stressful to him or her.

And me, while enjoying all the choice and idea of getting a refreshing coke or a juicy peach, perfectly riped and fresh from an orchard 250 km away, me wonders what to think about it.

Sometimes, especially when biking for hours without being in this context of cars, trucks, AC, shops, and light and noise, sometimes,  it all comes as a shock. A shock to the senses, and you just want to get away again. And sometimes, it appears like an oasis on the horizon after a long walk through the desert and you look into blinking lights and inhale the car’s exhaust joyfully looking forward towards the cuddling blankets that modernity provides.

Ah, and yes; my impression is that the same happening to the little groceries in France is happening in other areas: Sephora et al asking for their tribute.