Why Blog?

When I started blogging back in 2010, I, like most, was reaching into the void, attempting to send some communication that I was here. I felt extremely isolated at the time, after that second miscarriage, surrounded by those telling me it was for the “best” or even worse, those who were so disappointed they could not speak at all.

The Lost World

Like Jodie Foster in Contact, I longed to see what was out there. Where there others feeling as alone, as isolated as me? Did they want to communicate? Could some soul out there possibly feel some empathy for my infertility and loss? I was skeptical, but some part of me must have felt there WERE others.

And then my lonely sole signal was received by Mel, who shone a light back. Through Mel and her community, I discovered a blogosphere of writers talking about infertility. Some were in the beginning of their journeys, some would over the years attempt treatments and ART. Some would move onto adoption. Some would decided to live childless/childfree after infertility. Some were telling their stories from a distance, with a sense of time passed but never forgetfulness.

As a child I had often had fantasies of discovering a lost world, a type of world that would exist if I climbed the neon green hills higher and higher in the spring during hikes with my parents. I imagined that suddenly beyond a vista a mysterious land would appear and I would discover like-minded children: ones who would rather hide behind a book than chase after a soccer ball, a place where quiet would (mostly) prevail, but where my strange sense of humor, centered in the absurd, would lead to laughter not bewildered stares.

The infertility blogosphere ended up being that lost land in many ways. At first it seemed a mirage, an illusion: there couldn’t possibly be so many souls out there like myself. But there were.

Of course this new virtual world ended up to not be a utopia. There were rules, alliances, cliques even among the utopia. And for a while I got lost.

On my vacation I had time to consider what it is about blogging that is so important to me. Why I return to it again and again. Why, even though I’m “done” with infertility, I won’t cut the tie.

A Hogwarts of Sorts

It’s because, like Harry Potter when he finally received his letter, I discovered Hogwarts that iron gray day back in March of 2010. In the midst of pain and anger and sadness, somehow I was initiated into this magical world of those like me. I know that sounds bizarre. No one would wish for infertility and loss. I would not wish it upon anyone. Yet, there is a magical world of sorts here, invisible to the fertile, the muggles, if you will, bless them. Our meetings with others ARE magical, and I always enjoy reading about them from other bloggers. We have super powers of empathy and sympathy and we cheer each other on.

I once compared BlogHer to Hogwarts, but I wasn’t accurate. I met and connected with my fellow ALI bloggers there. THAT’S why it was Hogwarts.

It is not a perfect world. Hogwarts wasn’t either. We are human after all.

Yet, every time I connect to you all and read your stories and comment, I feel distinctly LESS alone, more accepted, more understood.

For Everyone Here, There are 1,000 Who Are Not

I spoke to a woman on vacation who had undergone IVF four times. I recognized the telltale signs of parenting after infertility: the fear, the gratitude, the guilt. I’ve connected to a number of women in real life who are going through/have gone through infertility and I try to offer them what I (hope) I offer you: empathy, sympathy. But mostly: the sense that they are not alone.

It’s a message that needs to be amplified.

Not everyone reads blogs. I often forget this, but it is true.

However, some of the best things in mainstream media about infertility, adoption and loss COME from bloggers. And this week is a good reminder of that.

This week, Lavender Luz had a soft launch of her wonderful and much-needed book about Open Adoption, The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption: Helping Your Child Grow Up Whole. I urge you all to please consider buying this book. Making this awesome tome a must-have, must-read book, a bestseller, would be a huge boon to us all.

The RAD Kymberli penned an excellent and accurate article demystifying surrogacy for CNN. She was also in the latest Essence issue, included in a sympathetic and accurate round-up of infertility.

A Mission Statement of Sorts

In the end, this is what I believe comes from blogging: I believe that each one of us who blogs makes a difference. Each story has the potential to encourage one person to feel understood. I heard a report on NPR about the importance of telling stories, from a Middle East think tank who studied how individuals responded to issues. You’d think that the overall statistics, the logical dry arguments would be the more powerful methods but it turned out that wasn’t the case. The only way to change a person’s mind about a particular issue was to tell a story about an individual who was living in the midst on it: what happened to them.

I believe this is true for infertility too.

Do you agree that telling your story makes a difference? Why did you start to blog? Why do you blog now?

The Pain Olympics

There are many types of bloggers.

For example:

A) Those out to promote themselves and their talents in specific ways (design bloggers, food bloggers, style bloggers)
B) Writers using their blogs as a platform to promote other works (novelists, non-fiction authors)
C) Experts advising on the right way to do things (nutritionists, doctors)

On the other hand, there are also bloggers writing about painful experiences they are going through. These writers are trying to find their tribe, a group of like-minded people who have gone through something similar or perhaps are suffering from a disease. These bloggers are a different kettle of fish to me. (Yes, I like my fish metaphors.) In these cases, blogs are a type of support group for people isolated by geography.

We had a really interesting discussion here about criticism. But one thing I neglected to bring up was The Pain Olympics.

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What is The Pain Olympics?

I don’t know where the term came from and I wish I did, because it is such a great phase. The Pain Olympics aptly describes the following phenomenon: people minimizing your pain by comparing what you are going through to another experience.

Here’s an example. I was listening to the latest edition of the Bitter Infertiles podcast. I am a sometime contributor to the program, and I was aghast to hear that a listener was annoyed with my participation because someone with DOR who conceived twins on her first IVF attempt is unusual. The overall complaint was that the panel wasn’t diverse because the other panelists are now all pregnant. Not only were the “facts” about me wrong, but the notion that I hadn’t suffered enough to represent the community was sort of offensive. The assumption that my fellow panelists had not suffered enough was DEFINITELY offensive.

(Aside: I have heard complaints that Faces of ALI only features the “worst case scenarios” and not the Clomid/injectibles/IUI cycles, which also leave their marks on those who go through them. It’s a complaint I am taking seriously.)

Bottom line: You can’t win when you play the Pain Olympics. No one can.

Finding Your Tribe

No matter how I approach it, I just can’t reconcile people criticizing the support group bloggers. They often write anonymously, they aren’t looking for fortune or fame, they have nothing to promote. They just want someone to say to them: “You are not alone. I also have been there.” Why follow someone to their anonymous blog about infertility to say: “Your experience is not worthy of sympathy or empathy.”?

I just don’t get it. Why bother?

What do you think about Pain Olympics and blogger comments?

Being Authentic

Great comments (as always!) and an excellent post from Mel with some very thought provoking questions about whether we can call ourselves original and the advantages of writing “sideways”: writing about others works and creating a dialogue. Like what I am doing right now…

A lot of you wondered whether being authentic was the same as being original. That’s a tough question: I think we are each original individuals and we each have different things to say, even if we are writing about the same topics, like April said. So what’s the difference between being authentic and being original? I don’t know if I know the answer, but I’ll present my theory about what authenticity means in blogging. As always, this is a dialogue and I welcome your thoughts.

There’s no doubt that authenticity is definitely a buzzword in blogging and social media right now.

When the trend of glossy blogs with beautiful photographs and images arose, questions of whether the blogger was being authentic were bound to arise. The shift in styles from a warts-and-all approach to the current dominant paradigm of image-based blogging has been a dramatic change.

I would say the shift began around 2008, way before I was even blogging or reading blogs. And I would argue (though YMMV) that one blogger in particular led the way to this change: Stephanie Nielson of Nie Nie Dialogues. Long before her horrific plane accident, she was writing a blog dramatically different than what was out there at the time. (She started her blog in 2005, when the dominant blogging voices were more in the confessional genre, like Finslippy and Fussy.) Nielson, a devout Mormon, was a young mother of four who wrote about finding the beauty in life, the gratitude in small things and who tried to focus on the positive. She was a beautiful, wholesome mom who was a vegetarian and exercise fan, who gloried in being a SAHM and whose zeal for all things motherhood was really inspiring.

Then her accident happened in September 2008, and suddenly the New York Times and Oprah chronicled her story. As she began to recover, readers were amazed to see that her positive attitude remained intact. That if anything, her interest in making life beautiful remained as strong as ever.

(Aside: I read her book, which was very honest about how difficult her recovery was and is, and why her approach to life will always be guided by her strong Mormon faith. I recommend it highly: it’s an incredible read.)

During this time, other blogs began to become popular with their similarly positive worldviews of motherhood. A lot of them were written by Mormons too (which is a religion that most definitely puts a strong emphasis on all things motherhood): Nat the Fat Rat (who has suffered from infertility: this post in particular is VERY interesting), Oh, Joy, Say YES to Hoboken. A lot of them focused on crafting, making things pretty, cooking, healthy eating.

Then this article came out and broke down why these blogs are so appealing to many.

“Well, to use a word that makes me cringe, these blogs are weirdly ‘uplifting.’ To read Mormon lifestyle blogs is to peer into a strange and fascinating world where the most fraught issues of modern living — marriage and child rearing — appear completely unproblematic. This seems practically subversive to someone like me, weaned on an endless media parade of fretful stories about ‘work-life balance’ and soaring divorce rates and the perils of marrying too young/too old/too whatever. And don’t even get me started on the Mommy Blogs, which make parenthood seem like a vale of judgment and anxiety, full of words like ‘guilt’ and ‘chaos’ and ‘BPA-free’ and ‘episiotomy.’ Read enough of these, and you’ll be ready to remove your own ovaries with a butter knife.”

At the same time, design blogs like Design Sponge, Cup of Jo and then the fashion sites like Atlantic-Pacific burst onto the scene.

And then we come to Pinterest: probably the single most important element as to why these blogs are the powerhouses they are. Many of the photos of the crafting and the reupholstered chairs and the quirky dinner parties went viral, so to speak, via the images.

And now, it seems a backlash may be coming, based on the growth and popularity of blog criticism sites. Who knows what the next global trend will be?

So this is the background (as I see it) about the context to why, in general, readers care whether bloggers are being themselves, presenting life as it really is.

In terms of my own reality: I am not as authentic as I could be. I don’t tell the FULL truth of my situation. I gloss over some difficulties. There’s a few reasons for this. One: I am not anonymous, my name is attached to my blog. Family and friends read this record. While I am honest about my struggles with infertility and loss, there are some sacrosanct lines I won’t cross for many reasons. Does this make my blog less authentic? Probably.

I would say the blogs that might be the most honest, the most fearless, the most real would be the anonymous blogs, like Esperanza’s. I think those blogs are unfettered by some conventions.

But is it just honesty that makes someone authentic? I’d say no. I think a blog with a voice that is consistent, thoughtful, full of a viewpoint that is carefully thought out and expressed is also authentic. And so, I think Nie Nie Dialogues is authentic, I think LavenderLuz is authentic, I think Stumbling Gracefully is authentic. I think Stirrup Queens is authentic, I think R. Savitus is authentic.

There are some blogs I don’t think are authentic, and I don’t read or comment on those blogs.

As a reader, bloggers who write or present things in a manner that does not ring true to me are inauthentic in my eyes.

But you may not agree

How important is the authenticity of bloggers to you? Do you strive to express your reality? How would you define authentic?

Being Original

First of all, thank you. Thanks for the incredible response and the dialogue in the comments box on the last post.

I am floored.

A lot of the discussion got me thinking about why originality matters so much, since this seems to be a key issue in this next generation of bloggers. What makes writers or artists truly a special snowflake?

I’ve been thinking about two special snowflakes in history in particular: my favorite American composer, Aaron Copland, and Emily Dickinson, whose writing was edited right after her death to fit more in with the norms of the day. To the detriment of everything that made her poetry so unique and punchy. (Thanks to Outlandish Notions for reminding me of my affection for Dickinson.)

As a writer, I am not as original as I’d like to be, in great honesty. I think Faces of ALI is probably my most “original” idea, and even it is a careful retelling of other people’s stories. There’s probably a few reasons for this. At my middle school and high school (as I’m sure was the case for most people), uniqueness of any kind was jeered and shunned. I had some mild mean girl experiences and learned to keep quiet and not make waves in order to survive. At my beach-y, paradise college, I played up my mellow, fun side to maximum effect to fit in. (Which was not terribly difficult, I must say.)

It’s fascinating for me to see a world where originality is awarded and closely scrutinized. Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, blogs: all of these places are outlets to “express” creativity, yet so few writers/artists truly do have anything new to say or show.

Another reason I have been thinking about this a lot is that my daughter shows signs of having no interest in following trends, whether it be clothing, hair, music or, well, anything really. The way she dresses is starkly different than her friends: she cut her hair into an artfully styled bob (and actually set a trend with that), she loves fashion from the 20s and 30s. I cannot dress her. She won’t let me. I try really hard to not mold her but instead allow her to heed her artistic whims. Even though my instinct is to not let her do that.

I guess the instinct to conform is itself deeply rooted in my personality. Or it was, at least, until infertility hit. By no longer fitting into the norms (all my other friends were mostly building their families according to exact plans), I became “other.” Being different was somewhat liberating. I sort of went in an eccentric and reclusive direction, becoming a mysterious figure.

This is a small example, a seriously small example of being different, but no one I know bakes much. I was a hostess for a baby shower and I wanted to do something thoughtful and cool for my friend who is awesome. So I baked the cake and cupcakes myself, from a frosting I’ve perfected from another blogger (NOT ORIGINAL!) and I graduated the favorite color tones of my friend who was being honored into different cake layers. (Confession: that terrible photo has been photoshopped.) This is not unique either: you could argue (successfully) that if anything, ombre is on its way out. But no one at the shower could believe that I had made (BAKED!) this really cool cake. It blew their minds. It also tasted really good, so that helped. I think they thought it was REALLY WEIRD (original?) that I had made that cake.

Anyway, I think it takes a lot of time and energy to truly think long and hard about making your work, whatever it is, stand out. Emily Dickinson didn’t have much of a personal life and lived with her parents. She rarely left her home after her early twenties. Aaron Copland traveled and studied with various muses and with different mentors, and even he struggled because his music very much went against the grain during the Depression. Emily Dickinson was never recognized during her lifetime. Aaron Copland had a very brief period in the 40s of writing brilliant music that blazed a new trail. Originality, it seems, has a short shelf life. Unless you are Picasso.

Do you strive to be original? Or do you prefer to write within accepted norms?

Those in Glass Houses Will Throw Stones

The vast blogging world, consisting of 70 million blogs and countless readers according to Eric Holter (“Blogging: The Bedrock of Advertising 2.0″) has felt like a small town in the last week. I am referring to the curious case of Get Off My Internets’ near demise, and its dramatic rebirth.

I feel the events have a lot to say about the way blogs have changed, what writers should think about when they blog, what readers should expect from bloggers and what the whole movement of bloggers as brands means to all of us.

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In the Beginning…

Blogs were once the domain of “tell-all” self-deprecating writers who presented a warts-and-all portrait of being single, getting married and then having children or even struggles with infertility. Some of these Gen X trailblazers gained traction that remains to this day. I would cite Ayelet Waldman’s short-lived blog which detailed her ambivalence about being a mother, or Heather Armstrong’s stark depiction of her stay in a mental hospital while suffering from PPD (which I couldn’t find, alas) as examples of this style. A lot of writers used snarky humor and sarcasm and many referenced the beloved pop culture of their childhood: think Funyons, Rubik’s Cubes and “Saved by the Bell.” Usually the stated goal of Gen X bloggers was to get a book deal and some of them did.

But as these writers have aged, the next generation has taken their noted earnestness and emphasis on being unique and really has rocked the habitat. Now, many bloggers showcase their beautifully photographed lives with lovable babies and exotic travel and domestic homeyness and hipster fashion and healthy food. Good examples: Bleubird Vintage and Oh, She Glows. There is great appeal in this style of documentation for two reasons. One, these blogs (whether about parenting or design or lifestyle) are rarely controversial and often gloss over the writer’s difficulties. (Or don’t even mention them.) Consumer brands love the most popular of these writers because they reach a coveted demographic of women looking to emulate their lives, from what shoes they are wearing to the moccasins on the tiny and precious feet of their infants. Two, the economy has been in the crapper and the realities are more difficult than ever, so the pleasure of seeing a pretty lady arranging flowers in a mason jar is a pleasant escape.

I knew something had profoundly changed when a woman at a holiday dinner mentioned to me that she is obsessed with a certain lifestyle blogger. She told me sometimes when she is having a bad day, those few moments when she sees what the woman is wearing or making in her kitchen lift her out of her funk.

Oddly enough, both styles of blogging have their perils.

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What Are Our Responsibilities As Blog Readers?

This article brilliantly highlights the dangers of bloggers becoming a brand. You should read the post, but in a nutshell: when you sell yourself as a product, people are going to begin to think of you as a reviewable product. They may start to dislike your aesthetic or your recipes or your own branded products if you’re bigtime. You would need a tough skin for this.

But even worse could be the fate of the earlier trailblazers, writers whose words are judged. What they wrote was and is poignant, honest, true, often times coming from a place of vulnerability, reaching for the great circle of support that their readers can provide. Writers who perhaps never dreamed they would become known as a “persona”, who didn’t want to become a brand based on their personality, are nevertheless known as brands.

This is a pretty illuminating (and long) article about mom bloggers of both types, and how they have fared and why they write. It also mentions GOMI.

GOMI is a very controversial yet popular site. It has both fans and detractors. Some claim that the site encourages constructive criticism and even investigative journalism, discovering inconsistencies in blogger’s stories, (James Frey-esque) and clearing the air on the bad advice and expertise of so-called “experts.” Others say it’s bullying and shaming and mean girls running amok. There are claims that it has lost writers’ business and clients. I’m inclined to think that ALL of this goes on there to varying degrees, but YMMV.

The C-ville article mentions an interesting motivation as to why some bloggers have so many critics.

Many or most lifestyle blogs, Mom Blogs included, are more about presenting a certain well-edited version of life rather than reality. Matchar wrote: ‘This is fine, but it can make readers feel really bad. They assume the blogger is just a regular mom and forget about how she’s also a writer who wants to present a certain image.’”

Bingo. I have been guilty of putting certain bloggers on a pedestal and becoming disappointed when they didn’t live up to my own views of how they should think and write and act. I think it’s human nature to look up to people: so often life seems so random and awful, and there are some select few who seem to have answers the rest of us don’t. We look to them and even emulate their choices sometimes. But no one is perfect and in the end we don’t KNOW these bloggers at all, just what they have presented. We need to remember this.

Now the warts-and-all writers. They are also criticized, and this I must admit, I do not understand this. This is where something stranger takes place. These writers are brave and honest, often baring their souls. I tend to really like this type of writing. I do believe that by discussing horrible things in the open, like miscarriage and loss, they lose their taboo and power to a certain extent.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say this: it appears that the criticism of the brave, vulnerable writers may come from a place of fear. These bloggers quite possibly are too close for comfort for some readers: they may share their weaknesses and are afraid of the bloggers’ realities so the bloggers are turned on and written about really nastily. I wonder if judgement comes from fear.

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What Do Writers Owe Their Readers?

I am a blogger, but I come from the place of only receiving constructive criticism. I have never had a troll experience. I am off-the-radar and for that I am thankful. But I thought this comment, from the Six Year Itch post, by one of my favorites The Bloggess was pretty brilliant advice for the many of you I know who HAVE dealt with this kind of thing:

My editor told me that the secret to success was having someone else read your criticism and letting them tell you if there’s something that’s legit that you need to be concerned about so that they can weed out the crazies without emotion. It’s a good idea to let a good friend read that stuff for you and let you know if there are recurring issues you might want to address or fix. That way you can fix the problem or miscommunication if there is one, but you aren’t subjected to the one or two crazies out there who are just insane but will get into your mind and make you doubt everything.

My point is that it’s easy to focus on GOMI because they’re mainly girl-based and focused on other girls, but even if they were gone you’ll still have tremendous criticisms (some critical and helpful and some completely off base) that exist, so I think rather than focus of stopping the criticism (which will never happen) we need to focus on how we deal with that criticism. When do we listen? When do we ignore? How do we (individually) find the best way to deal with criticism in a way that makes us better people/writers? I think that’s a discussion that needs to happen as more people start to have to deal with more focused criticism, unsolicited feedback and (occasionally) mean-spirited and wrong bullshit. It’s the hard part of being a writer, but in my opinion it’s just part of the job.

What do you think? What do we owe bloggers as readers? What do we owe readers as bloggers?

What On Earth To Say?

If you read me regularly, you’ll know this blog has been fragmented since this summer. As fragmented as the cheap kaleidoscope lens I bought my son, which was quickly broken, then lost, as most of the twins’ toys are.

The truth is, I have no idea what to write anymore. How to write. Do I craft short, escapist posts of happiness and photos or long heart-wrenching missives pouring my heart out? I’ve had some middling success with this blog in the way I hoped: as an advocacy tool, an educational mechanism. The truth is, in some ways, my wounds of 2006-2010 (two losses and infertility) have healed. The truth is, those wounds will never really fully heal. The bell has been rung, I’m forever changed by the experiences. The truth is: I’ll face worse, because I won’t live forever and this world is destined to delight and depress people and all we can hope is that perhaps we experience more delight, but that’s not a given. The truth is I’d like to write about things other than infertility, too. The truth is, I don’t know that anyone wants to hear about those other things. And, fair enough. I started off writing for myself, but along the way, I began to write for others. Those I knew. Those I didn’t know. Those I wanted to reach. Those who needed to hear stories of others, ordinary but extraordinary tales of loss and love and resilience and brokenness.

I know that some of you have been bewildered by my meanderings (Fashion? REALLY?) and probably hurt by posts about my kids, something I refrained from doing before. I understand: my audience is a mix of different people, some in the trenches, some living childfree not by choice, some parenting, some having nothing to do with infertility.

I don’t know why I feel “better”, but it’s a fragile state I don’t take for granted. In fact, if there’s one phrase that defines 2012 for me, it’s gratitude. I feel lucky. Sometimes grouchy, sometimes angry, but always grateful. Just grateful for my husband and my beautiful twins. That gratitude was always there, under the surface, but it got lost along the way as I grieved for my children who would never be, for the star-crossed road it seems I alone was dealt amongst my charmed friends and acquaintances. But of course I was not alone. Because I had YOU.

And dear, dear readers: this brings me to my question. What would YOU like me to write?

- Would you like me to finish Faces of ALI? (I had at least two more profiles planned.) Do they matter?
- Do you want me to create a separate blog for all things fashion and lifestyle? Because the truth is the other thing that has made me happy in 2012 is rediscovering the superficial side of myself that was submerged for many years. I rediscovered my old love for everything sartorial: mostly this passion was reignited by my daughter, who has taken her interest in clothes to a new level by sewing and crafting.

A friend’s father once told her that she was two sides of the same knife, one that makes shallow cuts and one that delves deep. He’s Romanian and old world and survived the Holocaust as a young child, and I think there is great wisdom in aspiring to this. For me, I think the key for surviving this world (for the time I am given) is to be both: both perfunctory and possibly profound.

I really appreciate and look forward to your comments as always. I know I have not always pleased you, you have not always agreed with me, and I am sure that some of my posts made your eyes roll into the back of your head as you clicked out of my blog But please know: I have deeply valued your time and your comments over the last two years.

How Do We Know What is Our Story to Tell?

One of the points made over and over at BlogHer was: “Your blog is your space. Your space, your rules.”

Another mantra I heard again and again was: “But that’s not my story to tell.”

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I guess I am a memoirist, a diarist of sorts. A writer who tells stories about my life, my experiences, my recipes, my fears, my dreams, my hopes. The lines are blurred a bit, though, because I tell other people’s tales too. I do this outright, with Faces of ALI.

But none of us live in a cork-lined flat either. (Except Proust.) We interact with others every day, sometimes only a small handful of people, but usually dozens and sometimes hundreds depending on whether we work in a city or commute, or sit in a cubicle in a skyscraper. Then there are the virtual interchanges: the Facebook updates, the blogs we read, the comments we get, the comments we make. The sometimes sharp debates and discussions we engage in. From the elevator door we hold open (or don’t) to the clueless comments we hear about “just adopting.” From the coffee barista we smile at or the customers we try to politely explain rules to. To the tweets we rush out in an attempt to be funny or relevant, which may come across to 1 or 2 or 76 of our followers as unfunny or offensive. All of these countless interactions we experience just in one day shape who we are in ways that are seen and unseen.

There’s a reason James Joyce followed Leopold Bloom through one day in that beast of a book “Ulysses.” If we truly describe all of a full day (especially an extraordinary day, as Kathy attempted in this remarkable post) we probably would have over 6,000 words essays, at least. Leopold Bloom wandered the streets of Dublin to visit a butcher and read a letter and used an outhouse and so on and so on. The internal thoughts and judgements and the niceties and the tensions of just navigating the mundane and extraordinary events of June the 16th added up to a word count of over 268,000.

So how do we separate ourselves from the interactions of others? Is that even possible?

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Blogging is a truly strange beast. Never have so many shared their thoughts, their innermost feelings with strangers. Journaling has been around for centuries, but so has the wail: “Mama! (Fill in the blank) read my diary!”

Obviously most bloggers put up walls. I don’t share the details of a lot about my life. Most of us don’t. But I don’t know if I could tell my story WITHOUT including the insensitive comments and remarks I got. (Although I don’t attribute them to specific people.) Nor could I not express my thanks for this extraordinary community, without mentioning and praising the bloggers who inspired me.

But by doing so, I am telling a story that is not mine to tell.

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I know that I have offended people sometimes with my posts. Usually, because I mentioned them or wrote about them without asking. I try not to do this anymore. (Although it occurs to me now that I didn’t run my story about Bodega’s shower past any of the writers mentioned, including Bodega. Were they offended? I don’t know.) I don’t run my writing past my parents or my brother unless they are copy reading specific, important posts. Are they offended? I meant to be funny about my brother the grammarian but maybe my story hurt his feelings? I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I probably should have. Darcy has a rule that he won’t read my posts. I talk about him, but not a lot.

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But what about those you don’t mention by name, or you imply, or they simply gather that you are writing about them? (Even if you are not.) Many fiction authors have offended friends and family who assumed that a character was based on them. And those were made-up stories! Here, we are supposed to be writing our story. Readers often DEMAND authenticity. (Not you guys. I’m thinking of criticisms I have seen about the big bloggers.)

Writing my story, my experience, has mostly been a mission of education for me: I wanted people to know what it was like to go through infertility and loss. The ins, the outs. I heard on NPR the other day that only by telling stories can we change someone’s mind. That studies don’t matter: people remember the anecdotes, the well-told personal tales. Hearing stories makes others more empathetic to someone’s plight. And God, do we need empathy for this community.

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Of course, we are a community here too. We jostle, we joke, we commiserate, we cry with each other. We learn, we open our hearts and minds to those we might not ever know IRL. And conflict is probably inevitable. Conflict seems to be a part of the human condition. There’s been an argument that women tear other women down, and I think that’s true to a certain extent. But, yes, I am reading Ulysses and it strikes me that humans tear each other down. We are in groups, communities, but those little safe havens, whether SF’s Chinatown or NYC’s Lower East Side around the turn of the century or Leopold Bloom, marching through the streets of Dublin: we are bound to come into contact with others.

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The ALI world has become my safe haven, but it’s not a utopia of course. Just like there is no utopia anywhere nor will there ever be. But I gather strength from it. It feels like a home to me, a comfy one where sometimes people bicker over the remote, but where, on rare occasion, the very walls seem to crack. (Although they seem to heal with time.) Sometimes there’s even a scary troll from without our walls, trying to hurt us.

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I haven’t answered the question I raised in my title. And that is because, of course I don’t know the answer. I can speculate, I can try to apply rules to myself, I can frown internally if I think those rules have been broken and I can (and do) feel shame if I break my rules.

My blog, my rules.

But what are your rules? How do you know what is your story to tell?

UPDATED: I thought this was a fascinating post and wanted to share it.

Bye Bye Balloon!

There is a question that seems to be reverberating in the blogging world right now. At a session at BlogHer, Mel asked: “Who wears the pants on your blog: you, your readers or your topic?”

I have been ruminating on this, because honestly? My blog is all over the place, right? It’s OK to say yes. It’s a little of this, a little of that.

After two years of pondering life after infertility and loss, after years of questions, I’ve finally come to a sort of peace. And an idea of what I want this blog to be.

It all began in Tahoe. I read Stephanie Nielson’s book “Heaven Is Here” during my stay. I am a Nie Nie Dialogues fan from way back, but the book told her compelling story in a single narrative. In a blurb: Stephanie Nielson was a mother of four living a beautiful life until the moment she got into a plane crash and was burned over 80% on her body. In a very moving and honest way, she describes how she found her way back to her beautiful life. It was deeply moving to me.

I haven’t been living my life lately as if I were a lucky person. I have been fearful and terrified and sad. It’s understandable, after so much loss.

I am lucky to be here, to be inhabiting my life. I have the life of a truly blessed person: one who has so much. I’ve been blinded by grief, but as if my sight was restored, suddenly I see my husband in front of me: someone who’s strong and makes so much of my life possible. Fourteen years have passed since the day I met and instantly fell in love with him, waiting in line for a concert. He dazzled me with his wit and sophistication and challenged me. He’s still doing so today.

And My God, my children. They’ve been in front of me, all this time, shining.

My dreams of more, more, more. I don’t blame myself for wanting more: it’s a biological imperative to have many children, it’s an urge deep in my soul. But I am not going to let it rule my life anymore. I can’t.

I’ll always look wistfully at big families, but I’m letting go of that dream. Letting it go into the sky like a sole, lonely balloon as I did when I was a child. I’d beg my mother for a balloon and then inevitably let it go. As soon as it was unreachable, I would sob and cry: “Bye, bye balloon!”

“Bye bye balloon!” I’ll miss you, but I must let you go.

Please know this is only MY decision and I’m not applying it to anyone else.

Faces of ALI is my very small way of giving back to the community that has given me so much. I will continue to write my profiles. Publishers and famous authors by damned.

But here, now, I must start something new. I understand if you do not want to follow me anymore, I do. Dear readers, I owe you this peace I now feel. I don’t want to desert you. I understand how you feel and my heart will always be with you, it will. I will continue to read your stories and comment on your journeys.

But in my own place, I must in turn follow the beat of the drummer I am starting to hear. I feel the excitement, the joy, the adventure, the heartbreak. It’s waiting for me, just around the bend. I hope you understand. I must chase it, because we only truly exist once, here.

Enough About Me! Tell Me About You…

In August, I want to focus primarily on commenting. I love reading blogs and for the lazy month of August I want to escape into new and familiar worlds…

I’m also looking to add blogs to my reader: please leave me your URL if you’re a newer blogger or reader in the comments!

So, what are you up to this last week of July? Are you looking forward to the end of summer? Or are you enjoying the dog days?

Also, and this is totally random: is anyone a flag expert? Our flag (see above) has really been through the mill in the last winter and it’s literally a Faded Glory. Should we retire it? Is that disrespectful? Or is it disrespectful to keep it up and should we get a new one? I worry about flag etiquette…

The Polemics

Have you noticed that the blog posts with the really strong, often controversial, my-way-or-the-highway points of views can hog the spotlight?

There’s been a couple in the last six months which drew my ire. Why do I respond so strongly to the stirring of the pot sometimes?

Here’s two examples:

No Excuses: Parenting Isn’t Hard

The title alone: I just can’t with this writer. But of course, I read it anyway. The post basically takes to task every single parent of all time. NO ONE is perfect. Has anyone in the world ever NOT raised their voice in some circumstance? EVER? I have to use time-outs or SOME kind of consequences (like not giving a child something he or she wants) or it would be anarchy here. I am kind, I am loving, I don’t name-call, I don’t spank. Yet, this post makes me feel judged.

And that’s probably the point.

It got over a hundred comments and was shared 221 times on Facebook.

Here’s a more gently written epistle, but still a one-size-fits-all solution: your baby won’t cry if you breastfeed all the time.

What about babies with colic? What about mothers who have no supply? My twins rarely cried as babies. THAT’S BECAUSE I WAS JUST LUCKY!!

I saw this “advice” because attachment parenting guru The Feminist Breeder responded to it, incredulous.

Are these posts so widely discussed because we like to get outraged sometimes? Do we need to get worked up about something, anything, beyond our own world?

On the other hand, there are the posts written about something I don’t agree with but they are intelligently discussed and presented. Those posts make me think, they expand my boundaries.

For example: I am pro gay marriage. I didn’t understand why many are not. But this was a revealing essay about the conflicts one religious woman feels. I don’t agree with her, but I respect the way she presented her point of view.

So WHAT SAY YOU: Why do we pay attention to The Polemics?