You know how every year, thousands of North American bloggers – mostly the female ones, but also some of the not-female ones, and also some babies – converge upon a city to talk about social media and blogging and stuff? That’s happening this week. I’m already hoarding Xanax.

Because, seriously:

BlogHer is like Comic-Con, except with more women and babies and fewer Trekkies. It vibrates at about the same geek frequency, though, which is something that too many people forget, I think. It’s a conference for women who write and socialize and make their livings on the Internet, which is to say that it is the very definition of geek. But for many people, it’s an event that triggers severe social anxiety and bad flashbacks to high school. Which is surprising, for what is, as I’ve said, a gathering of geeks, which is to say, a gathering of people who are disproportionately more likely than other members of society to have limited social skills and so who should not be even remotely socially threatening.

Babies are also not supposed to be socially threatening, but they totally are.

That said, I find BlogHer scary, too. I’ve gone every year since 2006, and the scary doesn’t go away. It’s big and it’s loud and it’s unrelentingly social. It can feel like high school, if you went to a high school with thousands of networked peers armed with smartphones and Twitter feeds. They might be geeks, but they’re a lot of geeks.

You can read more about my hand-wringing over at MomCrunch. I do a lot of hand-wringing. BlogHer makes me hand-wringy. In a good way, but still. If you see me there, know that my hands will be chafed, you know, from all the wringing.

When all was finally said and done, it wasn’t appearing on CNN in a tutu – nor appearing on CBC in a tutu, or posing in Central Park in a tutu, or watching as a limo slowed down on Fifth Avenue and the passenger leaned out the window and hollered – at me – hey, I saw you on TV in that tutu! - that stood out as the most memorable moment of my week last week. Which, when you think about it, is memorable in itself: I had a week in which I appeared on CNN in a tutu and that particular experience will not be recounted here because, during that particular week, stranger things happened.

Stranger things, like the prayer circle.

I don’t even know why the prayer circle was there, in the elevator bank in a remote wing of the convention floor of the Sheraton in Times Square. I was there because I had gotten lost, and, as usually happens when I get lost, I had rushed determinedly in whatever direction seemed most promising and in this case it was toward a bank of elevators that, it turned out, was hosting a prayer circle. And my first thought was, oh. They’re blocking the elevators. My second thought was, and they’re praying.

My third thought was, and I’m wearing a tutu.

I considered, for a moment, turning back. But turning back meant trying to retrace my steps through the maze of the convention floor and I wasn’t really sure that I could manage that and I was late and I was frazzled and I was pretty sure that if I didn’t keep moving I would just collapse to the floor and cry. So what if there was a prayer circle, praying, right there? Those were the elevators that I needed.

So I walked up to the circle, holding the layers of my tutu close to my body so that I wouldn’t make too much rustling sound and disturb the prayer. This shouldn’t have been a concern, because they were praying really, really, loudly, but still. For some reason I felt as though my tutu, with all its ruffles and tulle and bounce, might represent some kind of affront to their spirituality. I edged close to a woman on the outside of the circle.

“Excuse me,” I said, in a dramatic whisper that wasn’t strictly necessary, given how loudly they were praying. “Excuse me, but I really need to take the elevator.” The woman turned to me, looked me up and down, and smiled. “I saw you on TV,” she whispered. “You’re a good woman.” Then she resumed her prayer, and, continuing to pray out loud, put her hand on my back and gently guided me forward through the crowd until I was near an elevator. Someone pressed the button, and I just waited. Everyone looked at me and – not breaking the rhythm of their prayer – smiled.

I might have cried right then, but I was distracted by the fact that I was the only one who was a) not praying, b) white, and c) wearing a tutu. I smiled back – it was, I think, what is usually described by unimaginative writers as a ‘brave smile’ – and concentrated very, very hard on willing the elevator to come. Then I noticed that their prayer had changed.

“…and Lord, give this good woman strength, and surround her in love, and take care of her nephew, and her family…”

That was when I started crying.

Last week was – notwithstanding the hurt and the drama – so full of love and support and generosity, and that love and support and generosity sustained me through the hurt and the drama and that in itself is extraordinary. But as I said in this video interview, and in many media interviews, the only thing that surprised me about that outpouring of love and support was its volume. I already knew that this community is a loving community, a generous community, an extraordinary community. It’s lovingness is one of the reasons that I’ve kept blogging through the most difficult times, why I’ve felt empowered and emboldened to share even my darkest secrets and my deepest fears in this space. Even when the trolls have come out from beneath the bridge and trampled the flowers here, I’ve kept going, because I know, I’ve always known, that this is a community of good people. And then last week happened, and I realized: this community is so much bigger than I ever imagined. This community is made up of women bloggers and parent bloggers and lifestyle bloggers and food bloggers and naked bloggers and social media rock stars and PR experts and journalists and restaurateurs and trampoline businesses and politicians and tutu-wearing preggos and friends and strangers and random passers-by in Central Park and a clutch of beautiful people praying in an elevator bank. This community is online, and off. This community is the world.

(photo credit: JenIsJen)

I spoke a lot with people last week about the power of social media, about how we who use social media are so empowered by this medium, and about whether this changes everything, whether this – the power of a community on the Internet – changes the world. It does, of course. This medium is powerful. We who are using this medium are powerful. But there’s more to it than that. It’s the medium – and that medium is us, our voices, magnified through the tool that is social media – and the message. We are only as powerful as the stories we tell, and our stories are only as powerful as the heart and soul that drives them, and it is when we dare to raise our voices to tell those stories, share those stories, and when we do so with all our hearts, that we connect with other hearts and voices and inspire them to join us in our story, our song, our prayer. That’s what is powerful. Social media is just – just? – the megaphone, the amplifier; we are the storytellers, we are the voices raised in a kind of narrative prayer, we are the medium, and the message, and we can change the world.

We did change the world, a little bit, last week. You did, all of you with your beautiful, powerful voices, your good hearts and your prayers.

Thank you.

(Because I know that it will be said – I know this, because I am thinking about it – it’s important to point out that social media doesn’t work this way for everyone. Not everyone gets their stories heard. Which is another story entirely – one that I’ve been thinking a lot about this week, and one that hurts my heart, and one that I think demands attention – one to which I will direct my own attention – but I don’t think that it negates the force of what I’ve suggested above: that when our voices are drawn together – by the pull of stories that reach right into our hearts – they do become an amazing force, and that the real power here is not just in the tool that we’re using, but in the goodness that is driving us to use it.)

If you have to ask that question, you should probably read this first – it’s the story of my nephew, Tanner, who is dying of Duchennes Muscular Dystrophy. It’s kind of a long story. But you should go read it, and maybe also my most recent posts about him, because the story matters. Take your time; I’ll wait.

Okay?

So, yeah, I’m trying to raise money to make his biggest wish – to live out what time he has left at home – come true, and I’m trying to raise awareness of DMD, and of the challenges facing terminally ill children and their families, and I’m trying to do something, anything, that will make everyone – myself included – slow down a little and really, really cherish the time that they have with their children. And, yeah, that’s all a big job, but Tanner’s worth it – every child who struggles through this kind of thing is worth it – so. But I’m not doing this on my own – far from it – a whole bunch of people have pulled on their tutus (you got to that part in your reading, right?) and designated themselves Fairy Godpersons and are doing stuff to support Tanner and dreams and wishes and the whole project of being real. Stuff like:

- The #TutusForTanner Great Tweet-A-Thon Auction, hosted and managed by the incomparable Scott Stratten, aka @unmarketing. It’s going on RIGHT NOW, and it includes stuff like iPads and weekends in Vegas. You should make a bid. (Watch the #tutusfortanner tweet stream to see this unfolding. It is heartbustingly awesome.)

- The Epic Run For Tanner, in which the amazing man known on Twitter as @wwbhjd runs laps – laps – around Central Park. In a tutu. For Tanner. (Read more about it at Black Hockey Jesus’ blog.)

- The MemeTales book for Tanner, created by the divine ThinkMaya, which is also the base for another auction, and is being supported by all sorts of awesome small (and mom-run!) businesses. (Updates on this auction are also streaming through the #TutusForTanner tweet stream.)

- The Canadian Embassy Party at BlogHer, this coming Thursday evening, at which ‘Toonies For Tanner’ will be collected, and tutus made (this is your chance to make your own tutu, which, you know, you always wanted to do), and much celebration of how wonderful it is to play fairy godperson.

- The People’s Party at BlogHer, also this coming Thursday (after the Canadian Embassy party), also collecting ‘Toonies For Tanner’, and also celebrating life, liberty and the pursuit of tulle in the name of heroic little boys.

- Totally random and insanely awesome tutu-making bee in the lobby of the Hilton New York, in which crafty bloggers will be making tutus, for a donation, and/or coaching you on how to make your own.

- The BlogHer 5k / Tutus For Tanner run, which was a crazy/beautiful idea that came out this crazy/beautiful idea, and which will see a gajillion tutu-ed women (and a few men) running, walking, skipping and moseying through Central Park and down Broadway this Friday morning. (Didn’t sign up for the run? Just show up and walk with me and Tanner. Not going to be in New York? Wear a tutu anyway – and tweet it, blog it, Facebook it or upload a picture to the Tutus For Tanner Flickr page. Or just wear a tutu quietly in your own home. That can be fun, too.)

If you want to help, you could support any of the above initiatives, or you could just donating directly to an organization like Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (which supports research specifically into Duchennes) or to the Make A Wish Foundation (which is like a fairy godperson writ very, very large) or to any other organization that supports the needs and dreams and wishes of children who haven’t the time or the muscles to realize them for themselves.

Or – and I totally, totally mean this – just hug your kids, hard, and treasure every second of your time with them. If that’s all you do, that is totally enough. Totally. More than. If all this story inspires is a little more cherishing and loving and whole-hearted embracing of every precious moment… well, that is everything. Really.

Really.

This afternoon, I took 237 photos of myself in tutus. Red ones, black ones, yellow ones; with shoes, without shoes; with leotard, with tank tops; standing close to the mirror, standing as far away from the mirror as possible without making it look like the tutu wasn’t so much tutu as it was epic muffin-top… in every single one, with the possible – possible – exception of the one above, I look like a giant, drunk flightless bird.

It’s going to be a long week. Worth it, yes. But long. Also, scratchy.

I was going to write a post about BlogHer. I was going to write a post about what it’s like and how to cope and why, really, really, nobody has any reason to be nervous or anxious because everybody is nervous and anxious, but then I realized, I’ve already written that post, like, almost a dozen times already, because this will be my fifth BlogHer, and I’ve probably written two or more posts about BlogHer for every year that I’ve been to BlogHer, whether speaking or keynoting or packing an infant around, so. I figured that I’d just link to the last one that I wrote about how important it is that we – collectively and individually – just chill the hell out about this thing that many of us are going to do next week.

Go read it. Or don’t. Either way, know that whether you’re going or not, it’s not the be-all and end-all of our collective existence, and you’ll be fine either way, we all will be, and when it’s all done there’ll be some bickering and bitching – there always is – but all in all we’ll all feel better for having this community, and we’ll all need a nap.

And some of us will be having tutus surgically removed from our bodies, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

This weekend, my sister ran in a tutu for Tanner. Afterwards, she wrote this:

Wow. Life is a journey, a path that has been laid before us – to help us learn, love and grow. To push ourselves and just HAVE FAITH. In life and each other. I will readily admit, sometimes my faith falters… I think it does for everybody. Some days I am brought to my knees by grief. NOT because I feel sorry for myself or wish for a different life, but simply because I look at my kids and my heart swells and breaks at the same time. And I know many many parents face this and probably much worse than I do. I have the time. I can clockwatch, as my sister says. Though it may seem torturous, and some days it is, I am blessed with knowing now that life is moments. The here and now, not yesterday and not tomorrow. We have to cherish each and every breath we take. I have been taught that and have been blessed to make EVERY moment that I can of Tanner’s life be memorable and meaningful. I have at least that time for now.

Today was so meaningful – to see my best friends and complete strangers donning a tutu for a child they do not know, to lend support and compassion – not just for Tanner but for all the boys affected by this, for the sheer strength it takes for them to get through their days, and to remain so happy and to accept their path with such grace and dignity. I was crying a bit on the run… because I was completely overwhelmed by the kindness and goodness of peoples’ hearts. Even the people on the sidelines yelling my name in support of Tanner and the tutu overwhelmed me. And how can I even begin to voice how my heart felt as Tanner crossed the finish after the 5k – holding my hand – to all the cheers for him! My heart grew 3 sizes today – and I didn’t think it could grow anymore!

In about five weeks, she’ll do it again. In New York. At BlogHer. With Tanner. Because – and I’m totally going to spell this out, because it is such a wonderful thing that I whisper it to myself over and over and over again and it feels good to say it out loud – she and Tanner are coming to BlogHer. And she’ll don a tutu, again, and so will I, and she and I and a troop of tutu-wearing friends will run and we will bear Tanner on a tide of tulle-frilled awesome and our hearts will swell together.

And if we cry together, well, don’t say that I didn’t warn you.

(If you’re coming to BlogHer, please come run with us. How often to you get to hit the streets of New York in a tutu? And for a good cause? Never, that’s how often. So. DO THIS. Or! If you’re not coming to BlogHer, just wear a tutu sometime that weekend, to run or to walk or to do anything – shopping for groceries, grilling hotdogs, hitting the pool – in a demonstration of solidarity with these muscular, swelling hearts. And send me a link to the pics if you do.)

(You in?)

It’s the kind of thing that happens in recurring nightmares: you’re standing on stage in front of a vast auditorium, a thousand expectant faces turned toward you, the lights burning your eyes, when you suddenly look down and realize that you’re naked. Nude. Starkers. Completely and totally sans pants. And although you want desperately, desperately, to flee the stage and cover yourself, you can’t, because for some reason your legs won’t move, and you’re stuck there, under the burning lights, under the gaze of the audience, terrified as shit, and you must, somehow, go on.

And then you pinch yourself and you wake up, the relief washing over you in cold sweat.

Or, if you’re me, you don’t wake up, you just look up and realize that, yes, this is really happening, and that although you are (small mercies) wearing pants, you are sobbing your heart out, on stage, in front of more than a thousand people, and that public emotional nakedness feels an awful lot like how you imagine public pantslessness to feel. Which is to say, scary, and more than a little embarrassing.

In hindsight, of course, it was a liberating and empowering experience. I feel courageous in a way that I didn’t before; I feel that I accomplished something important in having walked through the valley of fear and come out the other side, whole. It’s not unlike the feeling of accomplishment that I felt after having given birth to Jasper under such trying and terrifying circumstances: I didn’t expect to feel such fear during his birth (just as I didn’t expect, as an accomplished lecturer, to feel fear during my community keynote address), and so surviving that fear turned out to be something of a unexpected gift. I surprised myself with my own strength; I discovered that I could, as they say, feel the fear (and the parts tearing) and do it anyway. But just as with Jasper’s birth, although I was proud of myself, in doing the keynote, for getting through something that was unexpectedly frightening, I can’t say that I’d want to do it again.

Or maybe I would. I don’t know. Sharing the story that I did with the thousand-plus women in the Sheraton Ballroom was in many respects more intimate and personal than was sharing that story here – this surprised me, because although I know that more than a hundred times that number have read the story online, I had figured that speaking the story would be less intimate than writing the story. I sobbed my heart out when I wrote that story, both because it is a story that breaks my heart, but also because, in writing it, I felt as though I was whispering it to my dearest friends, inviting those friends to share my secret, my mother’s secret, and to pull closer to me, and to comfort me, and to urge me on. I did not expect when I read it aloud, in an auditorium, through a microphone, my head blown up a thousand times its size on giant flat-screen monitors, that I would feel that intimacy again. And that I would, again, cry.

And then I cried (photo courtesy Ree/The Pioneer Woman)

This, of course, is the beauty and magic of BlogHer: the feeling – almost always unexpected, for me, although you’d think that I’d learn by now – that you’ve wandered into a landscape filled almost entirely with friends and fellow-travellers (yes, even with all the sponsors, really), that although you believe that your most intimate moments in sharing your writing occur online, in the virtual space that has come to feel like a kind of home (it is, after all, where you wear your pajamas), that intimacy can be multiplied a thousand-fold, in real life, in a room where you are surrounded by people who understand, who even though they might not know you, the real you, the you that hides behind the screen, they know your stories and they love your stories (and even if they don’t know and love your stories, they know that you love storytelling, and you know that they love storytelling, and that matters) and that binds you in a way that you can’t imagine possible until you are there.

You simply can’t imagine until you are there.

Even sobbing your heart out upon the stage, even strumming your own pain with your own fingers, even killing yourself softly, publicly, with your very own song, even then, you feel the bond. Especially then. Because it’s then that you learn, or re-learn, that the community out there – that tribe of moms and foodies and fashionistas and bargainistas and techies and pundits and crafters, that tribe of women, that tribe of geeks, that tribe of storytellers – is your community, in all of its difference, because it is a community of people who understand why you are compelled to tell your stories, and how hard it can be sometimes to tell your stories, and how good the telling feels, even when it is hard. It is a community that shares its stories, that loves its stories, that honors its stories, and the tellers of those stories. Even when those tellers drop their figurative pants upon the stage and moon the audience with their souls. Especially then. So it’s my community, and I am honored to have had the opportunity to bare the ass-cheeks of my soul in its direction, and grateful to have felt the waves of love and encouragement in return.

Which is to say that, yes, maybe I would do it again. With or without pants.

*******

Because many of you have been asking, yes, there has been progress in the search for my brother. It has been complicated and emotionally painful (for both myself and my mother), and so I have had moments of wanting to give up the search. (If you plug “Lost Boy” into my Lijit search widget you’ll get all the posts that I’ve written on the subject, most of which I’ve linked in the previous sentence.) But I have not given up and will not give up and I will keep you all posted, I promise. Thank you all, so much, for your love and support.

I am so tired that my toes are limp and my hair aches. Even my left earlobe can barely support its own weight. I can, however, hug my children (who did just fine without me, thank you very much). Because the ache to hold a creature such as this is far, far stronger than the ache of tired.

So hold them I will. And that is the only thing that I am going to do today. The only thing.

Well, that, and explaining that Mommy saw a unicorn, an actual unicorn. And ate it.

I might need to get some sleep before I tackle that one.

(If you’re looking for the post that I read for BlogHer’s Community Keynote, it’s here. I’ll have more to say about that later.)

(Seriously, must sleep – and hug and eat and sleep and hug and sleep – today. There’ll be time enough for talking when the sleeping’s done.)

(Am so tired.)

My children, yesterday afternoon:

I guess they’re doing okay without me.

I am crying as I write this. Which means, basically, that post-partum hormones still surge through my body even over a year after the fact, and threaten to undo me at every turn. Also, that I am a sap.

I am a sap, and I am undone.

Soon, I will climb into a car and drive away from my children. This is a mixed thing: I so crave the break, the time to myself, but I ache at the very thought of being without my babies. My girl, I know, will be fine, and I will be fine without her, because we have done this before, and because she so loves her time with her daddy and the promise of a gift from somewhere far away. My boy, on the other hand, I don’t know. We’ve never been apart for more than twenty-four hours, and the one night that we did spend apart was painful for us both. I know that he is going to cry and reach for me as he sees me leave. I know that I am going to cry – more than I am crying right this minute – as I watch him watch me go.

As I drive away I will think about how much I will miss him – and her – and I will cry and wring my hands, but I will also think about how much I will enjoy the time away and I will thrill, a little, with excitement. And somewhere in the space between anxiety and anticipation, I hope, I will find peace.

Otherwise, this weekend is going to require a lot of liquor.