With more years behind me than I like to remember, startled into cyber-sensitivity by assorted encounters with a brave new world, I stand at the edge of the precipice: leaning, looking, listening for the voice that has lured me to this place.
What do I know of websites, blogs, html, css, pagemaker? Not a thing. Or, at least, so little that my friendly five-year-old neighbor could out-navigate me in any cybercontest. When I look at a hyperlink, I hyperventilate. When I hear the word “tag”, I think of a children’s game. If any computer guru in the world begins a sentence, “All you have to do is…”, I’ve already done a mental turn and am running for my life. They mean well, and so do I. It’s just that “intuitive” is not a word I associate with computers or their programs.
But I have things to say – words to write, metaphors to build, conclusions to draw, paragraphs to stack and reorder and move around to suit myself, and perhaps others. Whether I like it or not, the day of the Number 2 pencil, or even the old, clunky Underwood, is over. If I am to share my words and my vision, technology must become my friend.
Friendship, of course, takes time. It requires energy, and perseverance. Friendship isn’t an afternoon project, a weekend diversion, a passing inclination for those times when nothing else piques interest. Friendship is a commitment as well as a delight; it requires attentiveness and care.
I have far less time than I wish, and my energy can ebb, but I know attentiveness and perseverance. Perseverance is making coffee at 2 a.m. Perseverance is changing a title in order to attract more readers, and then changing it back to its original form because it is right. Perseverance is continuing to listen for the voice that lures us to the edge of the precipice even when the voice falls silent. Perseverance is singing in the night, though all others may sleep - believing that the song will be heard.
The question no longer is: do you want to write? For good or for ill, read or unread, poorly scribed or passionately sung, I will write. At the edge of the precipice, a bit dazed, a good bit confused, I have made my commitment. Let the perseverance begin.
Speaking of technology, we have this, from a letter dated 3 April 1959, written by author Flannery O’Connor to Cecil Dawkins:
“This is a nervous letter. I am congratulating you on the electric typewriter. It is very nice but I am not used to it yet. I keep thinking about all the electricity that is being wasted while I think what I am going to say next…”
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Where?
So where did I go?
And how did I get here?
I was somewhere else,
But now I am here.
I don’t seem to recall the path I took.
Maybe it wasn’t a path.
Just a way to go.
Not blocked, not marked.
But it went somewhere.
And now I’m looking back,
And see no tracks.
Just places where I was while getting here.
dml – November 7, 2002
Daniel ~
“…Just places where I was while getting here”
What a wonderful line and what a wonderful poem – thank you so much. And isn’t that just the way it is, sometimes? It really wasn’t a path, but “just a way to go.”
Obviously, I’m still working along, but I’ll be in touch. We need to talk about cross-linking, etc.
So good to “see” you!
Linda
[...] as I looked back over my lovely literary walkabout. Re-reading my first WordPress entry, Dazed and Confused, I remember vividly the experience of posting it. Like a first, tentative log-walk [...]