Mommybloggers? And so much more.

BlogHer is growing up.  The BlogHer women held their fifth annual conference last week, and if you’ve been reading blogs since then, you’ve probably seen too much talk already about the more distasteful parts of it, and a good bit of happiness and love as well.  I firmly believe that there was more good than bad this weekend, and we really do need to talk about it.  I have a post or two brewing on the sessions that I attended, and how my life was changed by some things that I heard.  Yes, really changed.  (Two words: Own it!)

The events this weekend crystallized a realization that I’ve been slow to come to.  Yes, the conference was amazing.  Yes, meeting these women I’ve been reading and crying with and rejoicing with and walking through tough times with was, quite simply, incredible.  (We didn’t even need to talk.  A quick hug and a couple of words was enough for me in many cases — because really?  We talk every day, through our blogs, you to me and me to you.  It was in one sense far, far less than I wanted (as if one could schedule an epiphany for the five-minute window in which we talked) — but in another sense, it was enough.)  Yes, there were parties, and dinners, and marketing, and swag.  But there was something else too.

This conference was BIG.  B-I-G, big.  1500 women.  3 days.  I didn’t get to see nearly all of the women I had hoped to meet.  Heck, I didn’t even see nearly all of the women whose blogs I read weekly!  I did meet many who I had not met before, online or otherwise, and a few of them changed me, and the way I read blogs.  But I was struck over the head by something else.

The mommyblogger label?  Is not one size fits all.

I’ve heard it said that pregnancy is the great equalizer.  Whether you’re a philosopher, a marketing professional, a lawyer, a technology specialist, or a writer, the world stops on a dime the minute you have a child.  All our education, our poise, our fashion sense, and our passions are obliterated — just for a moment — when the doctor/midwife/passerby says P-U-S-H and, for those few moments that last forever, there are no other thoughts except, “Please, God, let him be okay,” and “Get this baby OUT of me!”  We are all united on the birthing table/bed/pool where we first become mothers.

But it does not last.

And in fact, even this argument falls flat.   We are not all united in how we become mothers.   So many of us become mothers through adoption, through stepparenting, through foster care, and, yes, YES, that is wonderful too.

And see what I mean?  Painting all of us with one brush does not work.

We are not all the same.  After the baby/toddler/teenager arrives, we are united temporarily as we are consumed with quandries over the most effective diaper to use, the best way to help the baby sleep, and how to get a little sleep ourselves.  We are consumed with doing the best we can for these helpless little creatures/darlings/whirling dervishes as we bustle through the days and walk the hallways sleeplessly at nights while the infants cry/toddlers wake/teenagers stay out after curfew.  After some days/weeks/years, we try to regain our sense of self and remember our passions, dipping our toes/hearts/minds back into the world of work. We stumble and fall, but after a time, we find our place.

We each find our place.  My place is not your place.  Your place wouldn’t be a good fit for me.  What unites us — motherhood, in this case — is in fact a different path for each one of us.  Babies grow and change, toddlers reveal special needs, children have different interests, and teenagers, well, I’ll just leave it at that.  This may be heresy in the united mommyblogging world, but this week’s controversies keep throwing it in my face:

We are different people.

Just as before we became mothers, we wouldn’t be best friends/hang out with/approve of everyone else’s behavior, we probably won’t now.  Were you best friends with EVERYONE in high school?  Probably  not.  I know I wasn’t.  And yet, back then, we had something in common that shaped us perhaps as much or more than having a child shapes us now: we shared the same zip code.  We went to the same grocery store, we played on the same playgrounds, we went to the same dinners, the same dances, and we had the same friends.

Mommyblogging isn’t like that.  Blogging overall isn’t like that.  With millions of bloggers, there are bound to be some with whom you connect and some with whom you have — seemingly — nothing in common.  Some people you will love.  Some people you will respect.  Some people you will … not.  Some people want to do marketing and branding and SEO and product reviewing, and some people … do not.  For some people, it’s all about the afterparties.  For others, it’s the sessions.  For some, it’s the hallway conversations.  For some, it’s fancy dinners out.  For others, it’s the swag.

Over and over, I was slapped in the face with this reality this weekend.  We are not the same people.  We will not all be friends.  But we CAN respect each other, and listen to each other, and learn from each other.

I hope.

For it is only in this strange rabbit hole we call blogging that we can all interact — marketing bloggers, science bloggers, health bloggers, garden bloggers, fitness bloggers, political bloggers, fashion bloggers, photo bloggers, life bloggers — on a relatively equal field, and see what life is like in someone else’s world.

Mommybloggers are united by the fact that we have had children, but we are all individuals, and we collectively bring amazing talents and passions to the table.

I’ll be returning for BlogHer 2010.  But I will try harder to appreciate each blogger for who she is … and remember that my expectations are not your expectations, and my choices are not yours.

It was wonderful to meet you all.

Twitter changed BlogHer

BlogHer09 is over.  The conference weekend (was it only a weekend?) has come and gone, and now we’re each left to sift through the conference detrius that remains:  programs, business cards, ads, coupons, swag, more swag, ads that came with swag, and memories.  We’re each alone with our thoughts as the mania subsides.  The “we” is over, at least for a time, and we must sit with the “I,” forming our afterthoughts, asking questions like, “What did I think of BlogHer?  What did I get out of it, and who did I meet that I want to see/read/tweet with again?”

This is not that post for me.  It’s still bouncing around inside, and I’m conflicted on so many topics.  It was … different this year.  It wasn’t the bigger expo hall, the sponsored lunches (complete with a giant pasta jar made out of vegetables), more company mascots (Ms. Potato Head, the SoBe lizard, and not one, but TWO All laundry fairies), the costumes (at BowlHer and SparkleCorn), the private swag parties (I didn’t go to any), or the mania that ensued.

The difference was twitter.

Last year, I was a laptop girl, dutifully setting it up in each conference panel, taking notes, bookmarking sites, contributing to wikis, and otherwise taking action on ideas real-time.  This year, I left it at home (too heavy!) and brought my new iPhone.  It changed things completely.  Even thought I went to the same number of sessions (all of them), the same number of parties (the ones open to all), and met many of the same people (hello, you!), it was … different.

Here’s my top 5 list of how Twitter changed BlogHer, in no particular order (aside from the order I tweeted as I thought of them):

1. Tweeting key points made sessions more interactive.

2. By listening to #blogher09 backchannel, I could hear the best of other sessions too.

3. Party prep excitement was shared with everyone with Internet.

4. People heard exactly what they were being left out of … While it was happening.

5. What may have been intended as a whisper was broadcast worldwide.

Twitter enabled me to meet people I wouldn’t have found organically (by saying, hi! where are you standing? when shall we meet up?), but it also enabled a whole new level of disenchantment and rumors.  Overall, I’d use a conference backchannel again — but I’d take it with many more grains of salt — and I’d force myself to wait longer before reacting or retweeting.

How did Twitter change your conference experience?

Everyday Life

This week is a busy one for me.

On Monday, as per usual, I’m Mom all day, with two playdates, and then a brief meeting with the NASA Chief Historian. On Tuesday and Wednesday, I go downtown and work with other scientists on a science review for NASA. On Thursday, I leave for BlogHer. I’ll spend three days in a blog wonderland, meeting many of my favorite authors and diarists, not to mention the social activism mavens. It’s kind of like walking into a library and having all your favorite authors greet you as you walk into the stacks.

Today is a mix of writing the book, researching my next project, and running in the sprinkler with the children. I can hear their delighted squeals now — really, they’re downstairs in the playroom with Dad, having fun as I knock out a couple hours of work this morning.

It’s not all work and children, though.  I had a wonderful evening at Book Club last week, and a fantastic time going out with other blogging mamas at the PreBlogHerDC meetup at National Harbour.  We also get to see each other at playdates and at Thursday soccer, which I “coach.”  (No less than EIGHT mamas in our playgroup blog.  How cool is that?)

Oh, yeah. If you meet me this week, and you’re taken aback by the tagline on my blog “business” cards, perhaps you’ll see this post and understand. After so many months of being sick in bed, bald, tired, and worried, I’m finally able to move on and experience the fullness of life again, and

The Joy of Life After Cancer.

P.S. Guess who else is experiencing Big Joy this week?  Leanne and Daniel!  If you ever Followed Lingling as She Gave Lymphoma a Beatdown, pop on over and celebrate with them as they welcome their child to the world.  And of course, the Mothers With Cancer are active and writing and sharing the good and the bad with each other and with all of us.  As I power through this challenging and joyful week, I’m going to be thinking of them, and hoping that each one also feels strength this week, strength to handle whatever may come.

Book club

I should have read the book weeks ago.

I’ve read a lot this year, actually, as my children have grown into beings that act grown-up during their waking hours but need the sweet solace of mama’s arms as they fall asleep. I read them books, then I prop the flashlight beneath my chin, as I did as a child, and read myself books as they drift softly into naptime, or bedtime, or the endless twilight hours of summer that refuse to yield to darkness and sleep.

I love to read. Always have. But when there’s a deadline, I often leave it to the last minute, cramming as much Life as I can in the space before the assignment is due, knowing that I’ll pull together and finish the work, turn it in on time, hand it in hot from my old dot matrix printer (oh, sorry, that was college), and it’s only a question of how productive I can make the procrastination period: of course I can ace the assignment — but what else can I get done in addition?

And so I went about my business, conducting interviews with NASA mission managers, coaching soccer, potty training my toddler and doling out m&ms. When I stopped by the library to find the book last week, it was checked out – but another book looked interesting, (Accidentally on Purpose, by Mary Pols), so I checked it out and read it instead (diverting, but not complex). It was only when a friend offered me her copy on Thursday that I realized that time was short, that I should say yes, and that book club would actually come on Monday, as it always does.

I began to read. And then I couldn’t stop. A Three Dog Life, by Abigail Thomas, was completely absorbing, if confusing in its nonlinearity, and saddening as we readers watch her husband, hit by a car on page three, try to recover from a traumatic brain injury. The author’s comfort is her dogs.

For years, I had heard about this novel and looked forward to it, thinking that surely the dogs were sequential and integral to the story: one after another, the graduate school dog, the family dog, the dog of middle age, but that time would be there for me to read it when I got around to it. It was reading the book that reminded me that time is not always there. Time is but a framework for how we live, a way to measure what is yesterday and what is today and what can be forgotten as well as what may never come to pass. Time for the author’s husband is but a moment, a single moment, and it does not always correspond to the moment that the rest of the world is living in.

How chilling. But throughout it all, the author is comforted by her dogs: Harry, Carolina, and Rosie. Life goes on for her and the dogs as it stops completely for her husband. It is an intriguing contrast, one that remains with me after the book is done. How should one live a life, and how lucky are we that we can contemplate that?

I made it through the book in a three naptimes and a half (hours before the deadline of appetizers at the local wine bar), and held it all together just fine, unaffected, just another reader, until the book club questions in the back.

What is the coldest night you have survived? What dogs helped you through it?

Oh, Kepler.

How will I possibly hold it together during book club?