"Upstairs Train" - Choose Adventure
Jul 13, 2022
It seemed strange to me that this train found itself upstairs.
I mean, sure, it's a museum and all that. But a train upstairs?
I went to the California State Railroad Museum in Old Town Sacramento (finally) over the Fourth of July weekend. There is an entire floor dedicated to toy trains among the many impressive displays, exhibits, and, yes, trains on display.
I had a small HO gauge set when I was a kid. And I still remember lusting after my uncle's much larger (both in scale and completeness) O gauge set when it occasionally appeared during holidays.
While perusing this exhibit, there was a long stretch across the top of the roundhouse. And there it was: Nevada Shortline Engine 1. Upstairs!
As pretty as this little engine is, it was the dummy they chose to place in the cab that caught my eye. He looks a little rough around the edges, perhaps a bit intoxicated, but having the time of his life.
It reminded me to keep an attitude of adventure (which I needed for sitting in my booth for 14 hours on the 4th, but that's another story). Often I find myself in a different spot than I thought my actions would take me. And I have two options at that point.
I could moan and cry about the unfairness of the world. Put myself down for never doing anything right. Withdraw from everything and everyone to protect me from "mistakes." I lived like that for an unfortunate percentage of my 66 years.
That was my self-talk. And we are what we put in our brains. As some people have learned and tried to manipulate, if our brain hears something enough times, it accepts it as accurate, regardless of any empirical evidence to the contrary.
I realized a few years ago that I had been lying to myself all this time.
I found I could take the attitude of that engineer. I can embrace the seeming randomness at times of cause and effect. I can look at the unexpected situation for what it is.
Adventure.
A chance to experience something so completely out of my everyday world that I never imagined I would be there. Stand where I am in this new situation and know I am still me. And I get to decide how I will react.
And knowing that I am enough, just as I sit here right now today, to handle anything that comes my way. And when I am not, I guess I will be doing some learning quickly.
So when I come to those forks in the road, I know I have a choice. Stay on the main track and end up safe in the station, unnoticed and unremarked. Or take a chance on the side track and find myself driving a train upstairs.
I choose .....
LET'S GO!