Is this a typical modern experience? I was talking with my son on ICQ about weekend plans. I tell him I uploaded a Dearinth page to my domain page www.oakwind.com. He looks at it but it doesn't display right in his version of Netscape (it was coded using MSIE to check it on). I turn to my younger son to find the fix. He tells me to use a br code with clear="all". I continue my ICQ conversation, alter the code, upload the page, and LeBleu, (my older son) checks it again to see how that worked. While doing that he notices, again, that the domain forwarding service we are using doesn't show the exact url of the subpages but always just shows the top level url. He asks why we are using that service anyway. Tom and I discuss the topic, with Tom here at my side, and my son on ICQ, deciding that if he wants to host it on his server free that is fine with us. He will, so via the web we change it over. While this is happening, Vivre Draco, my son at home, wants to know if an online friend of his that he has never met face-to-face can visit our tiny, no-privacy house for 10 days. She's online and needs an answer to arrange a flight soon, which I can sympathize with since I'm trying to coordinate flights to CA for the Mysteries with Diccon, and working on an email while also doing all the above. Finally we get it all settled. (We said yes.)
I throw a few things into an overnight bag: underwear, toothbrush, paper for journal entries, a towel, and a book -- just the essentials -- and dash out for a visit with dear friends. But I have to return by noon to help clean the house for Starwhite and Arthur's visit. They are visiting family and friends in our area. Starwhite is a 6th circle CAW minister from CA and an online nestmate of mine from the Internest. What a lovely opportunity to host her, even if only for a day! I get to show off my land and the Dearinth in the field. We'll have a potluck and other CAW folks will come to meet her F2F.
Being an active part of the online community is very interesting. It ranges from a morning ICQ chat with Jackson (nestie from MN with very well formed lips) who I also have met at festivals and my son who now lives several hours away to communicating with many people on elists that I haven't met and may never meet. At the same time it encourages friendships that develop into arranging to meet in person. And it provides experiences where another nestie from the Internest, Katie, who is from AZ came to the University of Wisconsin for a summer program affording us the opportunity to meet. She's been able to attend a couple of StarSpring's rituals (my nest), a couple of the Grok Healing focus sessions, and will be at today's potluck to meet Starwhite.
I've made connections with people that would have been far more difficult and costly without the Internet. Years ago I met a woman, Haragano, at a PSG (Pagan Spirit Gathering). We talked, wrote, phoned. She flew out to stay with us at our home. Through her I "met" one of her friends, Allyn Wolfe, by phone and snailmail. We finally met in person a year later at another PSG. But those hour long chats, phone calls to CA, were expensive. What a difference today!
Copyright © 2000 Kyril Oakwind