The dune was small enough that rswfire did not have to announce it — he simply walked up it, near the lake, near one of the day-use areas, and then the ground gave way to something else. A little forest, right there, on the other side of a rise that took no more than a few steps to crest. He named it as he found it: this little dune, you just walk up it, and suddenly there's a little forest here. Awesome. Beyond that, more dunes. Beyond those, the ocean, which he described as reachable — one of these days — and left where it was, uncollected.
He kept walking, and the terrain gave way to inventory. Two months of work on his core muscles, already underway. Powders. Turmeric. Maca root. Whey, or something with whey in it, named loosely because the name mattered less than the fact of having it. Frozen chicken breast in the RV, and a Ninja Foodi he intended to learn on. He framed all of it in one direction: everything he can do to improve his health, to embrace healthier nutrition, so that the core muscles hold and support his lifestyle. Not a transformation project. A maintenance protocol for a structure already standing.
Then the register warmed further. He stated that he feels very good, that he loves his life so much — and named, alongside that, a restlessness. He described knowing he is getting older. Part of him, he said, is sad he wasn't like this twenty years ago. Part of him simply does not want it to end. He wanted, in his words, to be this age forever.
The arithmetic arrived on foot, mid-stride, and he worked it out aloud. A birthday coming. Plans already made for which parks he'll be at next year — three months, February, March, April, so that he's here when the dune season ends. He'd be forty-eight that year, he said, then caught it and corrected himself: no, forty-nine, because forty-eight arrives in about two months. Forty-nine next year, standing on this same terrain at the close of the same season. A pretty big number, he said, and set it down without flinching from it.
The correction did not derail him. It landed him back where the walk had started — on the ground beneath him, on the food in the RV, on the calendar already filled for a year out. He stated the reason plainly, and it was the same reason as the turmeric and the chicken breast and the three months booked in advance: he doesn't want this to end. He wants this to be his life forever. The dunes continued past the forest toward an ocean he hadn't reached yet, and he kept walking, still inside the thing he was working to extend.