Blog Friends

There are many pleasures to blogging and near the very top of the list must be meeting people in person that we would be unlikely to know in any way but blogging.

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon with Frank Paynter, of Sandhill Trek, and his wife Beth who have been spending this week in New York City. We had lunch at a favorite neighborhood restaurant and I gave them a mini-tour of my part of Greenwich Village. Among the stops is the house where the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay once lived. I'm running late this morning for an early appointment - no time to chat - so instead, this well-known Millay poem, First Fig:

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light!

Frank and Beth both give a very lovely light - as though I'd always known them.

Comments

[Winston]

Having followed and read Frank's work for many months, it is not surprising that he gives a "lovely light". I have yet to meet a like-minded fellow blogger face-to-face, but I look forward to that opportunity some day.

[Tamar]

How exciting and what a lovely light! I would LOVE to meet Frank Paynter and Beth, his wife.

Winston, it is, indeed a great experience to meet "like minded" bloggers. Meeting Amba and Ronni was the highlight of my spring!

[Frank Paynter]

Ronni, we loved meeting you and spending time with you. I was blown away by how quickly the afternoon passed! I wish we lived closer so we could get together from time to time. Ahh, well. Maybe we'll see you at some future BlogHer or something.

When we get home, I intend to reprise the vacation with a couple of "highlights" posts. I'll let you know when the "Afternoon with Ronni" jottings are up.

For now... we're off to see the Egon Schiele exhibit. Some might say "eeuuuuwww."

[yaakov kirschen]

The Edna St. Vincent Millay poem is one that I often quote. So beautiful and optimistic. But seeing it on your site it took on a different hue. Colored by the mortality of someone who is now an age which he once thought of as old.

Now for the embarrassing part.
I never knew who wrote it.
I just knew how to quote it.

[Millie Garfield]

I just started reading "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult and on page 47, what do you know, there it was, the poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, the one you quoted today!

[john F Allsopp]

Ronni,

reminds me of the time we met in NYC in 2000 (man 5 years ago now) after you had written to me about an article I wrote and we started emailing.

I don't think I ever told you the story of when I rang you in NY? This might be a nice time.

I was expecting Ronni to be like a *man*, so I called, and a woman answered, and I said "I'd like to Speak with Ronni please" and you said "this is she" (which is a very American way of speaking on the phone, I'd never heard it before).

Anyway, I always remember that fondly, (afterall we'd been emailing for a while, and all along I just assumed that you were a man).

And the times we met too. Hope to do it again some day.

john

[kenju]

I harbor the hope that I will get to meet some fellow bloggers someday. How nice for you. Now I will go and check them out.

[Liz]

Ronni, I started reading you months before we met at BlogHer, and I had the same sense when I met you in person--and when Frank came through Palo Alto last month, same deal.

The feeling is similar to catching up with the cousins I grew up with -- long physical separation, little emotional separation.