Since I moved into the new place, I’ve been without internet (except the paltry offerings AT&T has served to me at unsatisfactory speeds over the 3G network), and I’m ready to pull my hair out by its roots. It’s still 2 days until the internet hookup guy will come to my place (this was posted from the Starbucks on the corner). It’s disconcerting how dependant I am on the near instantaneous access to the global data network that is the World Wide Web, and yet: I don’t care. I don’t mind my dependence. I miss it, like a drug addict.

Growing up in Maine, I was always a scant hour’s commute from the grey shores of the Atlantic, but my father also built us a house on the edge of a small lake. Barely a few miles long and possible to swim across if I was feeling daring (though too far to swim back without an inner tube), I was always near the water. Somehow, even an hour from the ocean and on the shore of a land-locked lake, being by the water made me feel as though I was connected to something bigger than myself – not in a spiritual sense, the way that people seem to be eluding to when they speak about a deity or larger social consciousness, or even some natural phenomena, but in another way, a way that gave me the grandiose sense of limitless possibility, the glistening wet bravado. The water represented freedom on a magnificent scale. Its waves undulated into the future.

It seems disingenuous to draw a connection between the way the water made me feel and the way a connection to the web makes me feel – they are so very different, any connection between the two borders on the ridiculous. However, and I’m aware this may be a wholly singular experience (I apologize for such a personal entry), but the connection between the two bodies is apt, at least for me. The water was freedom, a connection of molecules and atoms that linked my sensation with the opposite shore – ocean people, seafarers, water folk, even in their tiny hamlets estranged from thriving metropolises where human life teemed, seemed more connected, more mystical, more in tune with the goings on of the larger world. They are in love with the weather, and they hate it, they are linked with the global ecosystem in ways that are much more ancient and unforgiving. To stare out into the water is to stare into everything all at once, including back into oneself, into one’s, and please forgive an agnostic for saying this, one’s soul.

The web is much the same. Those travelers who would brave its dark corridors and trench-like depths, plumb down into the swirling nexus of data exchange, transfer a reflection of themselves to other surfers, these are the mechanical mystics, the digital monks, the cyber-seafarers. Perched upon the brink of the global data network, I feel much the same as I did standing on the cliffs at Hermit’s Island in Maine, my toes a little too far out over the edge, the wind slapping my tunic against my chest, rhythmically, and with stark purpose.

The web is also the refuge of pirates, much as the sea once was, a romantic place – it’s easy to lose yourself beneath the waves, to suffocate under the pressure of so much to see, to explore. It is a place for all the great heroes – the cowboys, the pirates, the soldiers, the explorers, and the pioneers. It is possibility, ripe with pitfalls, poisonous serpents, and untold wonders. It is a young boy standing alight on the brink and gazing at the wonder of himself, standing tall by the edge of a digital sea and waiting for his opportunity to cross to the other side, one day, if he gets his slim chance. Even if he does not, it’s possible that waiting and dreaming could be enough.

But more than anything, that connection is a harsh thing to deprive oneself of – dreamspace is sometimes all we have – those cliffs, just to stand at the edge and gaze out over those churning waters – they are ours – our gateway, our Atlantic, our salvation.

So, it’s will be very hard to explain the look of pained relief to the man in the blue uniform when he shows up, a DSL modem under one arm, a clipboard in the other.

“Ready to get on the net?” he’ll say.

“Buddy,” I’ll reply. “You don’t know the half of it.”

-m.

p.s. if you’re coming down to rescue me: now would be perfect.