The Search

Today, while on my usual bike ride out to the bay, an owl cruised with me for about two minutes. Those two minutes felt like a good fifteen. A wild animal chose to spend a brief moment with a complete stranger – an alien, really. Less than ten yards away, we flew side-by-side along the path. Then she crossed in front of me and dove down into the long grass. She popped up with empty claws and continued the flight. I realized she was using me to spot any critters or mice scattering because of the human passing by. I didn’t mind though. It still felt like magic because I got to watch her search for something with mine own eyes instead of on the Discovery Channel. Then after another minute, she swooped in front of me and turned around back to her hunting ground as graceful as well, a bird in the sky. And I continued on my journey.

She made me remember something I wanted to write about a while ago, The Search. A few months ago, I was complaining about globalization, the ease of travel, and of course, the goddamn interweb. When I was still young, my parents would drag me with them to foreign lands – the summer vacation. I’d run into other kids in different parts of the world. I recall all the cultural differences from the way we dressed, to my inability to speak their language and their inability to speak English. And I remember showing them music from the US and how astonished they were with it. Then I listened to their music and I was blown away as well. But the immediate connection over something different, yet universal, always made me smile. Now, everywhere I go, people look the same and listen to the same stuff with the same equipment, even. There are slight variations here and there but mostly, the same. It’s harder to tell where people are from and I’ve noticed that even accents, especially in the US, tend to blend a bit more together. Chalk that up to broadcast journalists, although, they all sound Californian to me.

I was and am often fond of The Search. I’m not really interested in discovering what it is I’m searching for. I’m just interested in it actually “missing” or being elusive like the abominable snowman or Sasquatch. It’s intriguing because you can’t see, smell, touch or taste it. So many things were like that for me… Before the interwebs.

I’m truly grateful I don’t have to remember the meaning of every word and how I can instantly search for a synonym of ‘fun’ by just right-clicking. It’s ‘enjoyment’! I love it. I feel it. It’s great. Still, there is something about searching for something and never finding it that appeals to me. I don’t want to be frustrated and yet, I do. For example, I always wondered what happened to a certain someone I let down back in the 8^th grade. She was a person who I thought I felt something special for but then didn’t and then realized I really did later on. Yeah, one of those. So, for the past – let’s see, how long has the internet been around? – 15 years or so, I’ve been looking her up online and doing my own internet stalking. But there was no one to stalk because I could never find her… Until I did a few months ago. And it was great news. She’s married with kids and looked incredibly happy. It was more than I could’ve wished for her. Yet, something inside me was unhappy. I felt like I never wanted to find her. I just wanted to keep searching and never actually see what happened. I don’t carry any misguided feelings or what ifs about her. I’m happily married. I feel like I wanted to know I didn’t mess up her life by one mistake – how egotistical of me, I know. There is simply something in me that wished the search could go on. After that search ended, I felt like that guy in the old NetZero ad; I had seen all there was to see on the interwebs. It’s kind of sad, really, and that’s when my anger or frustration with the interwebs and the New World really took flight once more. I don’t think I’ll be logging off the internet for good. We just signed up for this really fast service and I’m loving the download speed. But where else will my search continue? I’m starting to go back to nature and look for it there. Maybe that search will prove daunting, exciting and never ending? Maybe I’ll find another bird to fly with me along the water? And maybe, just maybe, I won’t be able to find the answer to what’s out there. I’ll just get brief moments of magic…

- wear a helmet