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1/15/2008

I first started learning HTML in 1998, mostly out of curiosity and boredom.  I wanted to see if I could pick it up without taking a class and I found the basics pretty easy.  My first experiment, of course, was my own web site, which launched on March 27, 1998.  Back then I had a lot to say about myself and I did "rants" about various topics weekly.  Over time, I became aware that I had an audience, even if it was a small one comprised mostly of personal friends.  I found out for sure when I wrote something that angered a friend and got called on it.  Since I wrote only for myself, about myself, I hadn't really thought about how other people would feel reading it or that they would even care.  I knew that anyone could access the site, from just about anywhere, but I felt like I was in a cocoon, a personal space cushioned against the world.

There was something comforting about that cocooned feeling, to be honest.  I had a freedom to write just about anything I wanted.  I could refer to the past with abandon, use first names without fear, and cuss up a storm if I felt like it.  There was also something nice about wanting to write about myself.  My everyday emotions drove me to the written word as a process and a relief.  My anxieties drove me to try to create something out of them, which is where a lot of journal writing comes from.  It's also the way that a lot of art begins.  I'd never learned to play an instrument, though I'd wanted to and I have always loved music.  I was okay in art classes but didn't have the vital spark that would drive me to further study.  I wasn't a dance person and acting was okay, but I was tired of drama people. 

One of the only things that I've been good with in my life has been my own, native language.  Teachers started to notice my ease with reading as early as kindergarten, and my facility with writing as early as the first grade when I placed in the top three in a local writing contest.  In the fifth grade I was placed a year ahead in English, which was the most they could do since the school only ran to the sixth grade.  I struggled there at first since the older kids resented the handful of fifth graders that journeyed to their classroom once a day, and the teacher seemed particularly difficult.  But Mrs. Wilcox and I developed an understanding, and I let her pour words into my head.  She gave me one of the few leading roles in our play of The Phantom Tollbooth that year; I was the only fifth grader to have a major part.  Good old Mrs. Wilcox.  I still miss that woman.

In the sixth grade, my teacher Mrs. Myrick opened our classroom to a writing and reading workshop that was fun and fruitful.  She also enjoyed my work enough to help me gain a scholarship to a summer writing workshop at UCLA, which I attended with awe and happiness.  I had never been on a college campus until that time.  My father had attended a community college briefly but dropped out; the rest of my immediate family never got near university-level education.  Since I carpooled to UCLA, I had lots of time to wander and write before I was picked up each day.  I encountered school on a level and scale I hadn't really dreamed of, and what's more, everyone seemed to want to be there.  People walked with purpose amid buildings that were so fine, they put any school I had attended to shame.  I knew then that I wanted to go to college someday, to be a part of that environment.  My desire to write was also confirmed.

For years I wrote poetry, and while it was better than some, it was definitely in the angsty teenaged vein.  I also wrote tons and tons of journal pages, which I stored faithfully.  Then, around the time I was 19, I looked over those old pages.  I saw a lot of pain there, and some things that made me wince, and I realized how little of the best times I'd recorded.  I wanted to purge myself of those old pages, and I realized that the details only mattered so much, so I got rid of a good portion of my old journals.  I did, however, start a journal of sorts online, and for a while I tended it a lot.  As time went on and my schedule filled with other things, I stopped writing journals altogether.  My personal web site atrophied and as far as I know, few if any stop by it anymore, and that's only fair.  A tourist destination needs attractions and developments to stay interesting.

The ironic thing, I suppose, is that I have taught writing classes a few times and will probably teach writing a good deal in the years to come.  I have always valued personal writing, as well; during my early years I actually liked to read biographies.  But my own desire to plumb the depths in the form of personal writing has diminished greatly.  Lately I have been writing largely for school or work purposes; writing for pleasure sometimes seems like a bus man's holiday.  (For those who don't know what that means: a bus driver doesn't take the bus for his vacation, because it's too much like his job, thus bus man's holiday.)  And in the last ten years I have learned a great many things, including the fact that I am one of a multitude, and have more in common with the multitude than I could have guessed at eighteen. 

At eighteen I was an individual.  I wanted to stand out.  I knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I was different and worth knowing.  In fact, I knew a lot of things beyond the shadow of a doubt at that time.  It's not that I didn't have doubts but I had far less of them, and I also had my Beliefs and Convictions.  Yes, they were capitalized.  I thought such things were unshakeable, and I defended my Beliefs and Convictions with all-or-nothing vehemence.  I rarely compromised.  Like a stubborn horse, I reared my head and it might have even looked flashy sometimes, but it might not have been the best strategy.

I have since learned that the phrase "there's nothing new under the sun" shows up in the Bible.  Think about that.  Folks have long been aware of the patterns of life.  As I've gotten older, I've seen myself as a part of patterns, or following patterns that have already been established.  And I suppose part of me has resented it, being like everyone else, having my great dramas diluted by being part of an ocean of similar miseries and triumphs.  I have also mourned the loss of that feeling, the sensation that told me I would one day create something great and be noticed for my art.  I have long had the sense that art can confer some small measure of immortality, and there are only so many ways that people can make lasting monuments to the fact of their existence.  But I've also come to understand that most folks don't like the idea of living and dying in relative obscurity, if they think about it at all.  The web stands testament to this with a multitude of sites dedicated to personal and creative endeavors.  People are screaming to be heard and noticed, in pixels instead of paint and ink.

So this current incarnation of this web site is far less about some small, sorry bid for immortality and more about a bid to convey something of myself to people who don't know me.  I am aware that strangers might come across this place and wonder if they have anything in common with the person who made it.  I am also aware that my students, colleagues, and prospective employers are computer-literate and might end up here.  They should have something to reference to get to know me better.  But they must also be aware that this package is made for public consumption; it is marked by the personal and it might even contain the poignant someday, but it will always be restrained by its own public nature.

The ten year anniversary of my personal site is coming up and I have been tempted to do away with it altogether, to forego any attempt at mixing the personal and the professional.  But I realize that I cannot erase myself from my work.  I bring my experiences and thoughts with me, wherever I work, and I will have to deal with people in just about any job I acquire.  The opposite is also true: people will have to deal with me.  So this site can serve a real purpose and though it might be a liability - there is no guarantee that anyone will like what they read here, or that they will appreciate my purpose - it is more likely that I can indulge myself in a new way and that few people associated with my work will ever see it.  So here it goes.

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