Monday, October 21, 2013

Dear the Internet,

A visualization of routing paths through a
portion of the Internet. (Wikipedia)
I tried so hard to find you.

In West Yellowstone, you were not to be found in coffee shops, nor bookstores, nor brewpubs, nor restaurants, nor in the streets.

In Yellowstone National Park, not that I'm complaining, you were nowhere.

In my hotel, the threshold to you--a tiny little wireless signal--diminished and disappeared as I walked down the hall to my room, in the door...and poof  you were gone.

The internet in this town was
scarce indeed.
Do not ask me, the Internet, why I cannot do without you. I did without you, so it isn't a matter of cannot. But at this point in time--in history--the Internet is like oxygen. It is like oxygen, bonded with hydrogen. It is like a molecule of water, joined with other molecules of water in a heedless flow of information, like a river. Like one of the many rivers we walked beside in Yellowstone, where, it goes without saying, you, the Internet, were nowhere to be found.

In the end, we went in the tiny, tidy little library of West Yellowstone. The librarian looked at me. He know without my even saying.

"Do you by chance have wireless?" I asked, weary and pathetic.

He held out a slip of paper with the network and password.

The Internet, thank God for libraries. And librarians.


next time, don't be such a stranger,

htms


4 comments:

  1. First: you are an artist and poet and should publish this.

    Second: you have clearly adapted body and soul to the online environs much better than I have--instead I feel this peace of mind when I realize I can't, even if I wanted to, get online. Kind of lets me off the hook for engaging all that is out there. Calms my mind.

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  2. Love the photo, and that it is ensconced in written loveliness.

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  3. libraries save the day. the summers i spent in the boundary waters, I would go to the ely library to check email on their desktop machines. this was also pre-cell phone for me, and I also did my slcc interview from a landline at the community college in ely.

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  4. I must needs agree with Counterintuitive -- both on your lovely artistry and poetry and on the fact that I sort of like being off the hook when I cannot get online. If only the work didn't still pile up out there in cyberspace whilst I was enjoying the serenity. *sigh*

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