Some blog readers and I have been connected for some time, and it is a curious yet intense relationship. People can read between the lines. I have mentioned money more in the past few months than in the past six or seven years. Everybody knows what that means. I’ve gotten a lot of very nice messages offering support, help and even money. Kathryn wrote me earlier today suggesting I put a donation button up on the blog, like NPR stations on their websites and many art and literary sites do as well. “Like you,” wrote Kathryn,”they put a lot of work into their posts/blogs and compensation from viewers I think, is a great idea. I would definitely donate as I love your blog, and I think a lot of  your fans would do the same.”

It was a lovely message, a generous thought. I had a lot of mixed feelings about it. One of the things I have learned about children who experience trauma is that they close themselves off to help, they need to solve things themselves, they don’t trust anyone to help them withlout strings attached. They find it almost impossible to seek or accept help. I see myself in this description. Until recently, I refused to give speeches, take speaking fees, allow advertisers on my website, even promote my books too brazenly online. As I have opened up in other ways, I think I have opened up to the idea of help and support and yes, of being compensated for the work I do. I used to give framed photos away as gifts – thousands of dollars worth – and I think it was Maria who sat me down and said they was simply another way of giving piece of myself to others.

And Kathryn is correct. The blog is time-consuming and expensive to maintain.

Perhaps I am still just too defended, but the blog is a different thing for me, a personal expression, a living memoir. I do cherish the independence of being free to write what I want, what I think, in the open and full knowledge that this blog is free, and people can take it or leave it. That has been important to me in many creative ways, freed my mind, given me the focus and strength to stand in my own truth, even when it does not make others happy. I understand that a voluntary donation button would not censor me or curtail me in any way, but it would if I thought it might, and on that score, I am not yet at ease with the idea of donations. People see things differently when they pay for them. I can tell anyone in good conscience who is hostile or unthinking to go somewhere else. They are not paying me, or paying for me. Would that change if I accepted donations?

Necessity is, in fact, the mother of invention, and the changes in publishing, the economy, my personal life have caused me – like just about everyone reading this – to rethink the economic structures of my life. My blog is no good to anyone if I can’t afford to publish it, buy a camera or pay the design and maintenance fees. I appreciate Kathryn’s idea and I understand it raises personal issues I need to deal with before I could consider it. I know a number of people/bloggers  – including my good friend Jenna Woginrich – who accept donations and considers it a very fair way to defray the rising costs of publishing an active blog. I respect Jenna, she has taught me a lot. But I do think she and others approach their blogs differently than I approach mine.

It is very important to me that the blog be free and unfettered, a monologue I give to the world and yes, sometimes a dialogue. My original idea – to publish frequently and to keep it free – has held up. The blog grows. I am closing in on 10,000 Facebook Likes, a benchmark for me and for publishing. Many more people read the blog in this country and all over the world.  I understand that the world is changing and that blogs are being monetized, and I’ve taken some steps along that line – the Fromm Family Foods ad on my site, the Google AdSense ads that pop up along posts. Donations seem a big step to me, but one could also say they would be a way of supporting the blog, not undermining it.

Thanks, Kathryn, it is a worthy and gracious offer you made and I appreciate it. I think my preference right now would be to not have to take you up on it. It makes me edgy.  I talked a friend about this, and she said a year ago I would not have even considered it.  She thought it was very healthy that I had opened up even a crack. She was right. Even a few months ago I would not have considered it.  Every day I find myself doing things I would not have done one, two, or fifteen years ago, including finding love, taking photos, meditating. I am better for each one of them.