Field Notes: The Last 72 Hours

Over the last three days, I’ve been chasing a ghost.

Not a real ghost, of course. A WordPress ghost.

Visitors were being redirected to the wrong page, and no matter where I looked, everything appeared to be set correctly. Settings were checked. Pages were checked. Menus were checked. More than one AI assistant was consulted. More than one cup of coffee was consumed.

For a while, it felt like one of those moments when you know something isn’t right, but you can’t yet see the thing that’s causing it.

Eventually, with the help of some very patient people at HostDime, the mystery was solved. The culprit turned out to be a setting hidden in plain sight.

The website is now working exactly as it should.

But that’s not actually what I’ve been thinking about.

What stayed with me was the reminder that sometimes we spend a great deal of energy looking for answers in complicated places when the thing we need is much simpler than we imagined.

Sometimes the answer is persistence.

Sometimes it’s asking for help.

Sometimes it’s taking a nap, having lunch, and looking again with fresh eyes.

The door is open now.

And perhaps that was the lesson all along.

— Wendy