January 15, 2013
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Mystery of Footprints Lock
I am not fond of The Footprints Lock, for if you write books; God knows you want feedback from outside Xanga, but somehow mystery gremlins had reset my settings. It is hard enough to get one’s name and book out there without marking, “Kiss Off,” to your public. I can deal with a little controversey now and then, and this may have come about through two gross out sisters who were setting you up, one acting like Polyanna on her first blogs, then the other would tell you that you had just stuck your nose in private Texas family business, and she would be telllin’ Daddy that you had said a kind word to their unmanageable little darling home from college for the summer.
I kid you not that it was a set up, and I had to contact Xanga HQ to get rid of them from my site. I expect this is the deal — That once you put your name big and bright to be seen and heard, then you are walking in a mine field of not just the good folks but the ones loonier than a box of stale circus peanuts, and it can get fairly unpalitable. Our chances for privacy in today’s world are zero to none, and those of us who always hoped for the best quality of human beings get very disappointed when we see that, in reality, we have to go on misplaced trust, and none of us are capable of seeing in the darkness of cyber space exactly what we are getting in to, and the greater fear has to be the vulnerabilityof our children and theirs.
To name a few, we have narcicist, absolute psychopaths, people who would not know the truth if it smacked them in the face, and those who cannot live without a smidge of drama tatooed across their buttocks. So when younger people bring up trust issues, more and more,I am leaning toward wanting to tell them that it is almost impossible to trust anyone, especially when beautiful young and vulnerable women are in the market for friendships which may bear the burden of longing for genuine companionship. The cyberworld has taken us to the stars while the truth is that the best we may ever know of someone is down the street and around the corner. It stands true for men and older boys as well that maybe their is a harbor you are longing to reach, for you think it has got to be new and better; But sometimes, look homeward.
I can tell as I go through many of these Xanga writings that from coast to coast — region to region, and from the things which we say we enjoy, that small regional familiarity foreign to others only a few hundred miles up the road means a whole lot. Wealth in some areas happens to be the equivalent of middle class in the other, and the poor are treated differently according to the tennants of a church’s background. Some are satisfied with giving to folks who have no intention of pulling themselves up by boot straps, while others, from the very beginning are making certain that those who come know that something is expected of them, and I have deep and abiding respect for those with some structure, not that I want the hungry turned away, but people build pride deep within when suddenly they learn that they have gifts, and to steal a phrase, “Those gifts bear fruit.
Our jails were a lot more empty when highways were being built by prison labor, and yes; Many prisoners in the old days made license plates, so that is how that came in to being as a joke or threat about the potential for a person’s life. I am told that the one thing you do not want to take in to unemployment counselors is a place where there are years where you can account or show that you did nothing but to sit and to wait. I would be an untouchable in India, for hosputal labor required me to deal with body fluids and to take care of things no one else wanted to touch. Get a life! Not a one of us is beneath taking care of the most needy and desparate among us. So one loses a job as a computer programmer, going out and washing windows and calling yourself an independent business person has more credibility than sitting on your can sending out resumes to 2000 places where they are apt to wind up in the, “Inactive Files.” One can tell a lot about a person who goes out and makes the best of a horrible situation but who comes home at the end of the day having contributed something.
Does any one care that I have written many blogs recently when the pool of blogs is deeper than a well of water after a monsoon — Probably not, but if one person finds something which speaks to their lives, then my time is not in vein; So how had I locked many non-Xangans out of the pool, then I do not know, for I want to trust that if someone comes and reads something which I have written, then they and I shall have grown from the experience. I have been led down a yellow brick road by about less times than I have fingers over my years with Xanga, and there is no way possible to give all of you the time and the attention which you truely deserve; But if you think I should check out a post, because it will speak to me, then let me know, because that is the way that I will find friends along the way.
Sometimes, people disappear on Xanga, as if one day they were a friend, and the next day they decided they were a little tire of your stories, so they move on to another place. Year in and year out of your life, you will meet this kind of person, but no, great friends do not disappear. They may move to another place, but they are out there. For every one who has come along through my journey of writing, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” and have been here to share the angst, the awards, the hope still before me, then I want to thank you with all of my heart. Now that book clubs are picking it up through Kindle, then I believe we are going into a whole different phase this year, and another book is beginning to formulate in a career which I started really late unless you look at my early years, so once more; I thank you all who gave me the courage, and for those who have been beat up by the new world and its instant book service, then believe not that anyone has carried me anywhere, for I have begged for help from the beginning, and I still do. But some people are hurt, for their quest has now had the shawdows of success which I have had; So you must believe this that without A National Name or Producer, I have worked most days for three yeaars, never letting the sun set on what I believed in — A book whose time had come, and people who deserved to be known, those I left behind as a girl.
Trust first in something higher than yourself or than you or I; Trust next that from every bend along the way, then you shall learn more, but trust is fragile, and to endure and to not see it shattered; Then listen to every sound outside of your heart, and return it slowly when you have examined it like a fine prcelain, or the injured feeling in the eye you cannot pin point, and you will have begun to know that a time has come to invite someone or something in or to say without too many words the sad farewell from which healing will come.
Blessings, Barbara Everett Heintz, Aurhor of Amazon/s “Pinkhoneysuckle,” KDP – Kindle Ready, Hardback or soft cover as well as long time Xanga Blogger of Pinkhoneysuckle
