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A Many-Layered Life

How can this be? How is it possible that an email arrives in my mailbox from Wingnut asking me to contribute to the DFN? Wasn't it just yesterday I wouldn't know a wing from a nut if I licked one? The irony of my Nickname 'brave' is not lost on those who know me. They appreciate that it was desperation rather than courage that led me to my first tentative post on the board. Though I didn't realize it at the time, that post was the first layer of what is now my many-layered webmaster life.

From that post (and the millions which followed) I developed relationships; from the relationships followed learning and (sniff) love. While talking me through my first attempts at Photoshop this very week, my closest webmaster friend, Mitzy, said, "Just remember, brave, in Photoshop it's layers, layers….Layers!" If a 'normal' person's life is measured in seconds and inches, it seems to me that in many ways a webmaster's life is measured in layers.

There was the "leaving front page" layer, the setting up the directories layer, the find-the-resources-yourself layer, the commit-to-doing-the-npow layer, the daily-submitting-habit layer, and of course, the triple, quad, and tgp hub layers. And just like those photoshop layers which are at once stand-alone lessons and cumulative effects, each layer brings me closer to fulfilling my 'brave' nick.

Within a year of my first post and still in the infancy of my craft, I was secure enough in my abilities to take on some projects working for others. Though these jobs proved to be layering lessons of a different kind, after a few of them I actually felt qualified to take on the challenges of building a paysite- my current mind-boggling layer. Today I'm more aware than ever of how much I don't know yet I have unshakeable faith that no matter what the crisis of the moment may be, it is just a matter of time until I either figure it out or find someone who can.

Oh, Wingnut! I haven't written a technical article; you won't see a programming fact, line of htaccess, java script, server-side, or hardware solution anywhere in it. Nor will you see a list of the amazing people from VNWR who have contributed so richly to my education. But then, I don't see a Word in the DFN about Basketball either, so what the hell, life is just like that. I'm not a programmer; I've never taken any courses. The exciting part, to me at least, is that today I know how much I'd enjoy them and that I would succeed at them! I know this because every layer of my education has been composed of things that broke, wouldn't work, or were beyond me. I know this because I know that courage isn't the absence of fear but the willingness to work through it. And I know that anything I take on next I will take just one layer at a time.

Brave