we're nothing if not flashers and shoplifters waiting to get caught. we raise our shades daring the world to look in. we kind of hope they don't. we mostly hope they do.
A few bloggers have written that people who read them say that they're "brave" to reveal themselves this way. And they are. We are.
This week I got a new boss. The boss and I haven't worked together before, and so I thought I'd give her a crash course in who I am. I sent her the link to my credentials which links to all the places I live online, including my home here. She may be reading this. Now. If so, Hi. This is where everything's happening. Don't let it scare you.
Six months ago I wouldn't have done it. I had a boss I'd known forever, and I still didn't show him this place. I wasn't ready to raise the shade all the way. Sure, now and then I enjoyed the thrill of popping it up for a day or so, but then mostly hoped no one would be looking, except George and and my very best blog friends.
Then google bought blogger. Suddenly I'm getting emails from folks who don't live out here. They say, "Hey, that blogging thing is big." And they're reading more blogs, including mine. Probably yours too. Every now and then a friend mentions on the phone, "Oh I know that--I saw it on your blog," and I get that little rush of confusion, wondering what I wrote, about what or whom, certainly not having this particular friend in mind as part of the cast of characters who read me.
Things are picking up. They are looking in. Velocity.
The two-way mirror of blogging is us going about our business out here, and growing numbers of regular people--our friends, family, colleagues--looking in on us. The ones who don't comment. The ones you might get an inkling have come by from looking at your referrer log.
A little disconcerting.
Some bloggers have drawn their shades or moved online households because the risk of showing themselves is too great--isn't worth it, isn't practical. Their careers rely on the very power structures set up to silence them, and they can't afford--not yet anyway--the potential backlash from eyes of weight looking in on them.
Even now, I close my shade sometimes. I pull back and hunker down. And that's fine. Maybe the time will come when it's okay to let the trick-glass slip away, and all of our windows open onto one another. Maybe not.
But this day I'm okay with saying, yes, I write online, in fact, I'm rather more here than there, and so are most of the smart people I know.
So look if you like. And if you don't like it, pull your own shade down. Because no one but me can stop me from moving into the light.
