Friday night I had my meeting with the community Planning Unit chairman whom I had blasted with an angry email.

As you will recall, I've not succeeded in avoiding a neighborhood controversy concerning a proposed paved trail through our local park. I had tried to stay out of it - I'm in favor of almost any alternative to automotive transportation, and I think the rails-to-trails concept is great. But while I didn't want to align myself with the conservative NIMBY faction around here, who object to the trail on the basis that it might bring in an "undesirable element," I don't agree with the proponents of paving what little greenspace we have left here in the City so that our public park can become a thoroughfare for bicyclists. From what I had seen, both sides were behaving badly, and I wanted no part in it.

I had pretty much stayed out of the controversy, but then one of the tactics to support the trail became to associate it with the Atlanta Beltline, with which I am very much involved. And then our civic association leader left for a week, sadly to attend her father's funeral down in Florida, leaving us without a spokesperson. And then an ACLU attorney produced a batch of emails, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, that included what I saw as a "smoking gun" that our so-called representatives were colluding against us. In response, I shot off an angry email to the Planning Unit chairman. (For the record, I also fired off another email to our City Councilwoman and the Parks Commissioner, but since I did not know them personally, that email was more about the technical and political issues, and less about their role in opposing our 'hood.)

I met E., the Planning Unit chairman, at the Paces Ferry Starbucks, the same shop at which I had bought my mocha java that morning due to the bus tragedy on Northside Drive. We exchanged pleasantries, and then proceeded to each explain our positions and differences.

My Zen teacher has said that having angry thoughts is like carving words in water; that is, they are temporary, leaving no permanent marks that others can see, and do no harm as long as they are not expressed. But speaking in anger is like carving those words in sand - although they can leave a deep mark and last a long time, they can still fade with time and may not be too hurtful if one does not act upon them. But angry actions are like carving those words in wood, leaving permanent scars that may never heal again. I was worried, having already dug a deep groove in the sand, that the meeting would not smooth the words over but instead carve them into wood.

As it turned out, the conversation was not only amazingly civil, but even enjoyable at times. I apologized for the tone of my email, which E. said had hurt him, and in turn he admitted that my words caused him to carefully reconsider his recent actions and statements. I assured him, to his relief, that I was not initiating some sort of smear campaign against him and that, speaking for the neighborhood, we merely wanted the community Planning Unit to back off any kind of advocacy position and let the public participation process play itself out. If, as he maintains, the majority of the public favors a trail, then that will come out in the process, but if is perceived that the process were somehow short-circuited, it would only serve to reinforce the opinions of the trail's critics.

I have no doubt that E. was working in a way that he believes in his heart was in the best interests of the community but, as he put it, "no good deed goes unpunished." He admitted that some of his words in the emails that I had seen were ill chosen, but I told him I was not interested in picking apart his words or rubbing his nose in his errors. The important thing, we both had agreed by the end of our conversation, was that the public participation process go forward and that all citizens, both those for and those against the trail, have an opportunity to express their views.

I, for one, came away from the meeting with an increased respect for E. He admitted to some personal errors of judgement, no easy confession, and held out an olive branch for reconciliation. I accepted both his apology and the olive branch, and am looking forward to a less contentious dialog as this issue moves forward.

But karma can be a real bitch - my angry words now have me waist deep in the middle of the very issue I had wanted to avoid.