Into the Sunset

It's more interesting than we realize, coming into an experience like this one.

A college friend told me about Gather when the site was first launched.  He knew someone who worked for the site, and he knew that I like to read and write because we'd been pen pals for 20 years or so by then.  The writing I found was clever, original, and entertaining, so I saved the link and returned every so-often.  What intrigued me, most of all, was the chance to respond to an author -- praise the work, challenge some allegations, ask for clarification, or even share something that added to the topic.  I got brave, signed in as a member two years ago today, and -- without planning it -- became a writer here, too.

Some people will argue that not everyone is a writer.  I maintain that, by definition, if we are here and communicating by way of a keyboard and monitor screen, forming letters into words into sentences into essays, then we are writers.  Whether or not we are "good" -- and some measure of that is opinion -- is independent of the fact that we are writers here.  Still, because of Gather, I became a writer, so as to participate.

Some people here are artists, posting images, and I learned to participate in that kind of communication as well.  Because of Gather, I bought a digital camera and learned how to share what I see in and of my world.

Eventually, there was another, intangible aspect of the site that came into being.  Because we can share our thoughts -- and control how clearly we do so through editing and having all the time we need to formulate our statements -- those of us with deeper thoughts were able to find each other.

In the real world, that doesn't happen.  In the real world, we pause to collect our thoughts and people get distracted -- the phone rings, a screen flickers, someone else starts talking and changes the subject -- and we are lost in the chaos of life.  In real life, few people will wait to hear my stories, and fewer still will read them.  In real life, my slow words are cut off, unheard, and disregarded, my stories forgotten and my thoughts known only to myself.  Here, I had a chance to be heard. 

How do I know that's true?  I will share one final hedgehog adventure.  A true story.

I went out on some errands on a bitterly cold, windy winter day in early January, 2008.  As usual, I had my camera and several hedgehogs with me, and the opportunity came up to create a photo essay, which can be seen here.  It's minimal and hardly a story at all, but the hedgehogs were site celebs by then and they could get away with something like that; the real person who put it together was getting chapped lips and frostbitten hands, and several photos were unusable because of all the hair blowing across the lens in the high winds.

I went to five different places in the course of that day, and it was late that evening before I realized that I was missing a hedgehog: Hedgie himself.  I looked in every place I could think of for Hedgie, but it was soon evident he'd been lost while I was out of the house.  The next day, I established that I hadn't left him at work, either.  I realized something at that point: I was going to have to tell my Gather friends what had happened, eventually, because, as I said, the hedgehogs were site celebs by then.  How would the story end?

The next morning, although it meant getting to work late, I drove back to the playground where I'd braved the winds for that silly photo essay.  Since that windy day, more snow had fallen, more plows had come through, and the likelihood of finding him was slim.  I wasn't hopeful at all; the real reason I went is because I couldn't forgive myself for not trying, for being fatalistic and writing off a cheap toy.

And as I pulled into the parking lot, there was a little bump on the pavement:








A few of my Gather friends heard this story from me the day it happened.  I asked them if they thought I was crazy.

They said no. 



What's my point?  I didn't know two years ago that I would jeopardize my job for a $4 stuffed toy, but twenty-one months after I joined here, I had met at least two dozen people who could understand about a thing like that.

I couldn't have found them if it hadn't been for Gather. For that alone -- for those treasured, diamond friends -- I am eternally grateful I joined this site. 


It isn't easy to leave here.  In fact, I know I'll be back some day.
So, instead of goodbye, I'll say "See you all later."  (Just not sooner.)