I almost forgot HitRECord!

Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Raheem.

Assalam alaikum wr wb!

Well, it would be extravagant to say that HitRECord changed my life. That, to me, implies, some sort of lightning bolt event that shakes you up and turns you upside down. That's not what HitRECord was. And that's good. Because I've been struck by so many lightning bolts this year, I'm still sizzling.

Artistically, HitRECord opened my mind up to a million possibilities. I had somewhere I could put my words and someone to toss sentences at. My little heart sang as my words got caught up in images, videos, songs and on the tongues of people on the other side of the world. Who woulda thunk it?!!

I've begun to love images again as well. I'm still a little jaded - or maybe a little frightened? Either way, I have the courage to view film a little differently now.

I made a Get By sign for Woody's project. And quite by accident, I have stumbled onto my love of art again. I used to love art class when I was a kid. I was no Michaelangelo, but I loved the smell of oil pastels on my fingers and getting my hands dirty with paint and pencil ash. I had a lot of energy and getting down and dirty and doing something with my hands really expended a lot of that.

Now my trabajo requires me to sit in front of the computer for hours and sometimes, I feel that, if I see another screen, I'll throw a shoe at it. And sometimes, I place my life in such a tiny constricted space that I really can't be productive. So I'm hoping painting (particularly pastel painting) will help me get out of my head a little.

But most surprisingly of all (to me at least), HitRECord helped me redefine community.

My parents always have stories of their youth in Kandy. Stories that have been handed down for generations and probably been mutilated in the process, but they're still pretty interesting and I can tell a lot of emotion is caught up in the witnessing, the telling and the retelling of those stories. Seriously, they were involved in some of the most pivotal events of their neighbours' lives - wife-beatings, divorces, child-birth, drug abuse, alcohol abuse.

One thing I hate about living in the city and in the new millennium is that we don't have that sense of community.

Sometimes you want to yell and scream, but you know that no one's listening and no one cares. But on HitRECord, people do. They might not always respond, but you know there's a soul behind a pair of eyes watching you type furiously in the night. I know there is because people have sent me PMs saying so, perhaps months after the fever has passed, but still...it means a lot to me.

OK, so we might not have a little tight-knit community like my parents had in Kandy. But still in the act of RECording and Re-RECording, hearts, souls and butts are put on the line. And we remind each other that we are not alone. WE ARE NOT ALONE. And that's a huge deal.

HitRECord allowed me to figure things out in my own time. It allowed me to stumble in the dark, crash into things, maybe upset a few people, but eventually find my place.

And for that, I thank you, Joe, Dan and Teafaerie and everybody beautiful on that darn anachronistically polite forum. Woo-hoo! We made into the new year! I honestly didn't think I would, but here I am, hours away from '09. And you guys had a huge part to play in that. Really.

Wassalam and Fee Amanillah,
Zed.