{"id":312,"date":"2004-03-24T10:47:46","date_gmt":"2004-03-24T17:47:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/wp2\/uncategorized\/weaving\/"},"modified":"2004-03-24T10:47:46","modified_gmt":"2004-03-24T17:47:46","slug":"weaving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/mine\/weaving\/","title":{"rendered":"Weaving"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just got a message from someone I hadn’t heard from in many years. Someone <\/p>\n

I only know by email — we’ve never met. This message stirred up some old memories.<\/p>\n

KG (let’s call him) first contacted me ages ago. <\/p>\n

He had been ego-surfing (who hasn’t) and found a page of mine where I dared to criticize a book he had co-authored on a subject we both <\/p>\n

love: Chaco Canyon<\/a>. In my one or two paragraph <\/p>\n

”review,” I spoke my mind, as I do. He was furious at the effrontery. He took it upon himself not just to refute my criticism but <\/p>\n

to attack me as talentless and self-promoting. He was pretty mean.<\/p>\n

I’ve had a few such memorable exchanges; some with strangers, some <\/p>\n

with people I know (including one of my oldest and dearest friends<\/a>). Three of those with friends shook me deeply and made me question my <\/p>\n

perceptions and ability to communicate (that’s some mighty deep shaking). Those with strangers were easier; I was less hurt and more <\/p>\n

curious and tried to work through the flames. Most of these disputes were many years ago. Perhaps there was something in the air or in me <\/p>\n

that isn’t there anymore.<\/p>\n

So, I wrote back to KG and we traded a few messages. Eventually we worked around to tolerating each other a <\/p>\n

bit. I was still curious about what an uninvolved party would think of this; I posted
\na portion of our exchange<\/a>; it has been languishing in a corner <\/p>\n

of the Web these many years.<\/p>\n

Now KG has invited me to a show. I won’t make too much fun of the grammatical error at the start of the <\/p>\n

invitation (I’ve made the same error many times). I was curious enough to visit his website, which is attractive and professional. I <\/p>\n

checked the link to the web developer. It led straight to a porn site. I don’t think I’ll tell KG, and that makes me feel a little <\/p>\n

shabby and a little exhilarated.<\/p>\n

Of course, there is a message or a lesson in many things. Often the most obvious message is not <\/p>\n

really the lesson. There is, for me, the recurring lesson of forgiving — I think this post may prove I still have that lesson to learn. <\/p>\n

There is the balance between remembering and forgetting. There is the web we weave<\/a>, connecting even strangers over time. mjh<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just got a message from someone I hadn’t heard from in many years. Someone I only know by email — we’ve never met. This message stirred up some old memories. KG (let’s call him) first contacted me ages ago. He had been ego-surfing (who hasn’t) and found a page of mine where I dared … Continue reading Weaving<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}