A Punk With Luck and Dim Sum

The morning sun had just crossed the promenade and we knew it was time to hit the road – the final leg and an unwelcomed end to an amazing road trip that lead us through Belgium and France. But before we left, we decided to plant our backsides on a rounded concrete ledge that surrounded a simple fountain. After over fifteen hundred miles of driving, imbibing, and dining (not together, and in no particular order), we were about 200km from where we would catch the ferry back across the channel. 

Do you feel lucky punk?  Well, do you?

Eleven days earlier, the fountain may have been impressive. But on this last day, I must say it did not inspire me to throw in a Euro-cent (hey, that is a cent and a half to you yanks). I was more impressed with my wife, and with us.  We just sat there and listened to the random collection of feet navigate the loose stone that made up the pedestrian path. We watched the people walk around and away from us; we thought about what we had just done and what we had just seen.  

I had chocolate on my face and my wife let me keep it there. A few tomatoes dangled out from the middle of a baguette that was stuffed in our trusty day bag (okay, I admit it was a murse at times).  Our coffee was ridiculous on the pan-European delicious scale.  We were genuinely happy. 

We are so lucky, we agreed. At least at first, but the more we talked about it, we realized it was not luck that put us there in that amazing spot in our lives. It wasn’t exactly luck that booked the hotels, wine tours, navigated the opposite side of the road and car, and earned the keep to make it all happen. No, that wasn’t entirely luck. I sat with my arm around my best-friend and in that moment I thought I was a pretty damn lucky kid (it’s my blog, and I am still a kid).   

Here is the thing: we talked about that moment by the fountain several years earlier and several times over. It wasn’t that exact fountain, or even France, Belgium, or London, but trust me that moment was something we dreamed of long before I started to say bloody hell instead of Jesus. That moment represented countless conversations we had over pints of Anchor Steam at Liverpool Lil’s. We had always wanted to sit by that fountain and for the last five or six years we truly believed that we would be there.

Okay, so it wasn’t entirely luck that put us there (and here).  

So what was it?  

I think it was simple, actually. We put ourselves there.