support

Apologies, dear reader: I am still figuring things out here. You know, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking in my claptrap way about this whole, “Should I let people support me?” bit (despite what some people believe, my brain is actually only fair-to-middling and rattles around but doesn’t get a lot done). We’ve had a few changes in our household I haven’t talked about (not financial ones, but child-related); the results of these factors so far is I’ve offered up a few items for custom craftsmanship and enabled a donation button.

I thought about writing out all these thoughts and Hoga-events and maybe I will, In fact I know I will –

But not now.

One thing that occurred to me – a half-day after I made these changes – and caused me some degree of anguish is the possibility some readers might feel any pressure to donate, whatsoever. Now that pressure isn’t a bad thing necessarily and I leave it for people to stew in their own business there. I’m certainly not going to hijack content or even change much, at all, so it’s really up to them entirely.

But I wanted to talk a bit about support and what it means to me so you know where I’m coming from.

Over the years I have had cards, letters, and packages mailed to me. Several of these kindnesses, stunning and called back to memory most vividly, after I lost my father: bright fierce days of brilliance and pain and I’d hold letters in my hands and marvel, absolutely marvel at the kindness in the world.

In a relatively constant trickle over the years I’ve received phone calls, IMs, tweets, DMs, emails, comments, and formspring communique. People off the street talk to me about my writing.  Yes, some people ask for help or advice – in fact many do. And some people criticize, and this is occasionally helpful to me (though usually not).

But the vast majority of feedback I receive would be what I’d call Supportive. The letters and cards and emails et al make it very real to me that sharing here is not just a journal, just a diary I’d keep anyway, it’s a living, breathing thing for myself and many of my readers.

I do not need any particular consumer to “prove” themselves nor engage in any particular way. Full stop.

The kind words are Supportive. The emails are Supportive. The donations are Supportive. The Page Views and the “Avg. Time Spent On Site” statistics from Google Analytics are Supportive. Knowing I’m being read is Supportive. Comments are Supportive (in fact, I am impressed with those who leave comments and the caliber of discussion that often occurs… adding comments was quite a change for me).

I am being supported by so many in different ways. I feel very grateful for this. The idea that this space changed in some drastic way 36 hours ago is hardly accurate, even if, 36 hours ago, it felt that way to me at first.

My “support” banner up top will be changing soon just like lots of little design features on the blog come and go. In the meantime you can read my Support policy if you like. Otherwise let’s continue on our way.

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