It’s been a busy week, with visitors on each end and sickness in between, and I’m finally getting back to naptime blogging. I’ve been wanting to say more about this conference I attended last weekend–Blogher, in San Jose.

Blogher is a national (well, mostly. There are other countries represented, too.) network of female (well, mostly. There are other genders represented, too. :) bloggers who, among other things, gather yearly to learn more together about blogging and each other. The first day of this year’s gathering dealt mostly with blogging technology, and the second with the personal and communal aspects of the trade. Lots of networking and discussion and question-asking filled both days.

In preparation for this event, I wrote out a list of things that I am (writer, friend, wife, mother, blogger, etc.), anticipating an atmosphere where I might unwittingly lose myself, where the powers of high school cliques turned adult-bloggers could make me wonder who it is I am, anyway, and why it was I thought I was okay. I consider myself confident, in many ways, but there I was, earnestly reading my list on the drive there. I approached the registration table like jumping into cold water: nose plugged, here I go.

What unfolded couldn’t have been farther from my expectations. At numerous points I found myself tearing up, moved by the hearts and minds of these hundreds of women bloggers, changing our world one post at a time–organizing relief efforts, pooling resources, unveiling injustices, working through inner pain and outer conflict, helping people laugh, helping people feel less crazy and alone.

I felt honored to be an observer of and participant in these conversations, honored to be surrounded by so many people engaged so meaningfully with life, eager to learn and grow and cultivate and contribute. I met Erica Rios who works with Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology and talked with her about her work of bringing together women of technology and women who don’t identify at all with technology to engage both sides in conversation and sharing of ideas. I met Jen, who loves to write, and uses her blog as a place to practice her art, as well as a place to explore what it means to be a woman with complicated interests and feelings and experiences and relationships; in short, to be human. I met Leah, who converted to Judaism in her 20s, and is writing what sounds like a fascinating book about that, Kety Esquivel, who is passionate about justice and giving an alternative voice to Christian activism, Tish who studies religion in the media and breaks all stereotypes of what it means to be a Catholic scholar. And can’t forget Erika of HadashiWorld, whose bare feet have been sign and symbol of living authentically (read her about page; it’s beautiful), nor Sage Cohen, poet, essayist, truth teller. I felt instant kindship with Sage. And of course Jen Lemen, whose companionship as my writing group partner this last year and half has been invaluable, despite never having actually met in person!

I could go on.

What I really want to say, though, is how struck I was, in being in this crowd, by the beauty of each person that made it up. By the beauty there was in each person doing their thing. No two people had or have the same voice, the same words to give to their interests or observations. The same sort of peace that’s grown in me as I’ve written about bodies these last weeks grew there in relation to other aspects of being human. None of us is exactly like anybody else. Why not run with that, and be the most “me” any of us can be?

This entry was posted on Monday, August 7th, 2006 at 2:22 pm and is filed under Current Affairs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.