This Must Be the Place

I've found it. The Oasis. It was here along. No trolls. No bots. No banner ads. No subscription required. Just a blank page and a blinking cursor. This is the way the internet before "social media." The Internet was always social media. That's all it was in the beginnig, just two people communicating across phone lines. This is exactly what that used to look like. I can't believe it's still here. I would never have thought to look if I hadn't noticed on my old gmail account that I had a folder named LEAH that I had made when I lived in Munich. My friend Leah and I both loved books and reading and writing and we used challenge each other to write more about our experiences in Munich. We were both from the American South and grew up in small towns where people barelt left the county, let alone the country. And to live there and actually thrive was unheard of. We were each a slice of American Pie that made us feel less homesick as we played out our parts as Ex-pats in a strange place so far from home. I clicked on the folder and read the last e-mail she ever sent me. She apologized for not responding sooner as she was in Fiji and didn't have access to email. Typical travel check-in. It seemed so necessary then to post on Flickr, Facebook, Blogspot, or wherever pre-facebook posts were made just so people back home knew that you were safe and also to humble brag about what a fucking fantastic time you're having. Anyway, she signed off her e-mail with links to her Flickr and her Blogspot. I used to check it constantly just to find out what she was up to, the facebook and instagram came along and it fell out of vogue. I clicked the link, and to my surprise it worked! I was taken straight to her old blog. The most recent ones were about her most recent travels and interactions with German culture. I kept going back and back until I found the posts about her life when I lived in Munich as well and we were all but neighbors. We grew up maybe 300 miles away from each other but became friends in Europe. Re-reading her posts, i was instantly transported back to her 5th floor apartment on Sendlinger Tor, coffee and Camel Light on the walk home. Feeling infinite, drinking champagne till dawn. Everything that is good about life was cemented in my brain that year we spent together. Everything I have done since I left in 2008 has been chasing that feeling. I know she felt it too. Every moment of that time in Munich was pure perfection and we both knew that it would and we could never get it back. After going back through all of her posts, I decided to see if my blog was still active. I typed in the original url letter for letter. Of course it was still there. Like a box of old clothes tucked away in the corner of an attic and not touch for 29 years, there it was. A perfect and untouched relic of a bygone era. It was here all along. Waiting for us to come back. Like charging your old iPod and finding it all still there. The amazing, cringy choices of a younger self, torrenting, downloading, burning, stealing a full-ass LIBRARY of music and media frozen in time. I dug and I dug, deeper and deeper until I was transported back once again to my time in Munich. I went in reverse, starting with the time I was living on Avenham with Brett and Jenny, re-aclimating to American life. Cars EVERYWHERE. Walking SUCKS. Huge grocery stores full of shitty food. No public transportation, etc. Go back further and I'm in Munich, countining down the days before I have to fly home. Lounging around the un-airconditioned apartment. Drinking beer down by the Isar. Smoking weed. (Quite possibly the happiest month of my life). Go back further and I'm in Paris walking around Jim Morrison's grave and eating chewy baguette sandwiches and drinking coffee. Go back further and I'm arriving in Munich to cloudy skies, a brand new job, a brand new apartment, two brand new roommates and a brand new life. it was there all along. (btw, this is just a blank word processor. It does not have spell check. It does not have auto-correct. AI is not predicting what I'm going to say next. This is actually a lot harder than I remember. MY hands are in muscle memory mode from when I took typing class in 8th Grade. It's a lot more satisfying than I remember. This reminds me of how good it felt to share your life with your friends and family and maybe some strangers or new friends. Free of ads, free of promoted listings. It hasn't changed! I still has the toolbar at the top with BOLD Italics and Strikethrough with the HTML code brackets around it. I love it so much! How have we not all started going back to this?! I'm going to start posting everyday! I have so much to talk about and no one to share it with! Stay tuned for more.