We find what we find.

I came home from champs’ weekend today with 26 photos (If I had a photo credential, I would have about 6000 photos).  Sunday morning, I took a break from being a derby fan and took the light rail to downtown Portland.  I walked around in a mostly vain attempt to find a stray shopping cart to photo. 

I walked to Powell’s mostly as a tourist of nostalgia.  The room where the physics books used to live is an all kid’s room now.  The place where the Dungeons and Dragons books used to live is now a fantasy gaming novelization place.  Which is kind of the same thing….  I guess.

I left and walked down a few blocks to find the Powell’s Technical Books store where Fup used to live.  That store doesn’t exist anymore. 

I walked through the park blocks and the pearl district.  A tall gentleman asked me for 65 cents.  I gave him a buck.  He told me I must be a man of means, because of my red jacket and my cobalt blue shoes. There was one block, where I looked across the street to see someone with a cute little black camera poised a little higher than his waist.  Now, I don’t have a very strong tribal affiliation with the street togs. But I recognize a tribe member when I see one.  I flash a half-Mona Lisa smile at him and then look to where he’s looking.  I don’t see it.  Not only do I not see any stray shopping carts that I’m looking for, I don’t see what he’s seeing or what he’s searching for. Puzzled I look at him again. He’s wearing black shoes, a black jacket and dark wraparound sunglasses.  Sunglasses on a Sunday November morning in Portland!  Clearly I’m doing it wrong with my red jacket and cobalt blue shoes! 

I eventually make it down to the to the river walk. As I’m crossing the street, I find a man walking a shopping cart across the crosswalk.  On the other side, he picks up a slim red five by seven inch notebook off the ground.  I imagine it’s the kind of notebook a very hip Ernest Hemmingway would have taken notes in…. about the bullfights… about the fishing trips in the Caribbean… or about Franco. As I walk past him, because I’m not quite bold enough to take his photo, he exclaims, “I wonder if someone left a 100 dollar bill in here.”  I push on, and about thirty feet later I hear him cursing. He has not found a 100 dollar bill. He has only found fucking Earnest Hemingway’s fucking notes about fucking Franco. 

That’s the thing. We don’t always find what we’re searching for.

We find what we find.