When you ‘seek’ you don’t always find. That’s the second rule. Part A. Part B, then, is the logical conclusion of Part A.
Rule 2, Part B: Sometimes you find exactly what you’re looking for.
That only leaves us with rule number one. Because without rule number one, you’ll never find anything.
When I close my eyes, I remember the journey. The date that is most clear is July 4, 1998. That was the summer between my junior and senior years at Yale. I didn’t know it then, but I was already 3 years into the search.
And, I did not yet know what I was searching for.
But that’s part of the fun, now, isn’t it?
Because, as we all know (or if you don’t yet, you will), “wrinkles only go where the smiles have been.”
On that day, July 4, 1998, as the skies opened up above the crowd at Carter Finley Stadium in Raleigh, North Carolina, I was one of the Barefoot Children in the Rain.
I don’t remember the setlist too well that night. Not because I was drunk (I wasn’t). It was because I was wet. I had scored a couple of tickets to Jimmy Buffett’s Don’t Stop the Carnival Tour in Raleigh. I ran into a “couple of chums” and talked them into making the drive with me from Kannapolis, NC to the state capital that evening.
This was my first Buffett show. And I was excited.
And when the rains came that night, I wasn’t any less excited. But I was wet. And cold. And not yet drunk enough to not notice that I was wet and cold.
At this point in my life, I was 21 years old. I didn’t know who I was quite yet. But like most 21-year-olds, I didn’t know this either.
I’d been dumped a few months earlier at the beginning of my junior year by my girlfriend. I am sure it was my fault, though I don’t remember the reason.
As the year progressed, I’d connected with another young woman. She was a senior from Canada. And among the many things I didn’t yet know, she was the one.
But once again, I didn’t know what I was looking for… yet.
All I know is that on this night, I was wet. And on the outside, I was cold. But on the inside, deep in my soul… there was a warm fire that was burning. And, if I trace it back four years, I can pinpoint the spark that started it.
Back to rule number one. Rule number one says that in order to find something, you have to be looking for it.
I didn’t know what I’d find, because I didn’t know (yet) that I was looking for something. And sometimes, that’s what makes the finding fun. Especially when you take a look back on the journey and you realize that the clues were circling you like sharks around remora.