WE WERE BLOGGERS

A month ago, I started writing a blog post where I waxed nostalgic about the old days of BlogHer. I had been thinking about how nice it had been to be in the room with these women I follow online and meeting new people, hearing their stories and reasons for blogging. I would walk away inspired to do more with my blog, be a better writer, take better pictures. That conference was something I never expected to be drawn to attend, but I never really expected to be a blogger. When Chris built my first blog in 2000, I looked at him with a raised eyebrow and said “What am I supposed to do with this?” He told me that this was a space where I could keep our friends who had scattered themselves across the state and country up to date on what was going on with me. I did not think that the blog would ever be anything more than that.

Over the years, this space has been my soapbox, my navel gazer, my practice in creative writing and my therapist. When Chris built that blog, he opened up a world of other voices and I found a community of women who awed me, inspired me, made me feel hopeful, and made me feel like I was a part of something. Many of those women I never spoke to in person, only on the rare occasion when I would be brave enough to leave a comment and maybe a word of hello at BlogHer. I never failed to fan girl geek out whenever I was face to face with some of these bloggers who I considered to be celebrities. I knew I would never be as cool or popular as these women, but I could cheer them on from the sidelines and buy their books. Even though I didn’t know these women in real life, a number of them reached out to me when Chris was sick, sending cards of support and care packages. I’m not sure I ever really expressed my gratitude for their thoughtfulness. Then things changed. Most of the women I followed in the blogging community have stopped blogging and have moved on to other things.

Except me. I’m still plunking down words full of navel lint as if anyone else might still be paying attention. 

When I saw the news of Heather Armstrong’s passing this week, I immediately reached for my phone to text Chris. Then I was just standing there at my desk, my phone in my hand, blinking at the screen. I felt untethered and between worlds. The one person I knew who would understand what I was feeling was no longer available. Heather Armstrong of dooce.com was one of the first women in the community of bloggers I followed and it was through her blog that I found other women like Maggie Mason, Alice Bradley and Karen Walrond. I wanted to meet women like her, women who bravely shared their ups and downs with us on the internet. Without even knowing she was doing it, she challenged me to be a better photographer and her words inspired me to keep writing. I have her books prominently displayed on my bookshelf along with the books by the other women bloggers I follow. Her words gave us all permission to be honest and open about our flaws, but she was also hilarious. I mean life can be a real shit show. We are better off finding the humor in it all and Heather Armstrong was pretty good at doing this. I never met her in person. I only very rarely left a comment on her blog. There is a small subset of women in the blogging community who did know her personally and seeing them sharing their memories of their time spent with her has been beautiful and sad. While Heather Armstrong could be a magnet for internet trolls and haters and she sometimes said things that we disagreed with, we can’t deny the impact she had on the internet and communities that were formed from her influence. I mean, dooce became a term we used for someone who got fired for their blog. It was a Jeopardy! answer. She opened up space for talking about uncomfortable things.

In the beginning, I remember having to make explanations about what a blog is or why someone might blog. People outside the blogging world thought we were crazy and often met the word ‘blog’ with some disdain. “Oh…you blog.” they’d say as if they had something sour in their mouths. There were people who just couldn’t understand why or how we could write about personal things and share it for the world, THE WORLD, to possibly read it. Whatever. Blogging is not for everyone, but I will say that we were the beginning wave of a mental health revolution. Women read about other women struggling with parenthood, jobs, sexuality, anxiety, depression and so much more and they could see that they were not alone. Many of those women bloggers normalized talking about mental health. We normalized talking about our bodies and all the weird things they start doing with age. We normalized talking about the hard adult things. I count myself as one of the smallest voices in this revolution. I’m grateful to the women like Heather Armstrong who were some of the biggest voices in this revolution, even if she was messy and flawed. And while it may seem odd to mourn the loss of a woman I never met, never really knew, I find that my grief over her loss encompasses the way things used to be. She was a part of that.

It is a more than unfortunate loss and I can imagine how unfathomably difficult this is for her family. 

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline

We can all help prevent suicide. The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals in the United States. 988lifeline.org

HACKING

On Sunday, I received a Facebook message from my friend Tom that included a link for someone I might have know who recently died. I clicked on the link because I’m a dummy, but to be fair it did kind of look like something Tom would send me. Tuesday morning, when I finally opened up Facebook, I was greeted to a number of messages from people (as well as a number of text messages) of concern. So then I spent the morning securing my Facebook account and sending out messages that “no. that link is not from me.” Seriously. If you clicked that link, please go change your passwords and secure your account. The nice part of all of that was that I ended up having four different chat windows open with people I hadn’t talked to in a while. It was nice to reconnect.

I forget that sometimes.

Say what you will about the internet, but I still believe that it is a resource for good. When Chris built my first blog twenty two years ago (holy goats….I’m an old lady), he told me it was for letting our friends know what was going in our lives. By this time, we’d secured a framily but our framily members had moved to other cities and states. We all had blogs as a way to stay connected. Also, Chris saw something in me that I still struggle to really see in myself, a person with creative potential. The world of blogging had a number of benefits. First, it did make it easier to stay connected with our framily. Secondly, it introduced me a number of amazing women all across this country who blog. Some of these women, I would even call ‘friends’ even though we may have only met once in real life or not at all. Some of those women no longer blog and I miss them. Some of those women might write a new post once a year and I miss them. Some of those women have new life views that have veered radically away from my own and I don’t follow them anymore. Those who remain on my list are all women that I admire and who inspire me.

Yeah, the internet can be gross. There are some pretty awful people out there who really get off from spreading their hatefulness and misinformation. But I think there’s enough of us out there who are committed to sharing truths, light and goodness that we can drown out the voices of those awful people. Which reminds me. I need to reach out and leave more words of encouragement and support, not just for my blogging friends but for those distant friends who I haven’t spoken to in a while.

Again. IF YOU CLICKED THE LINK IN MESSENGER CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD! SECURE YOUR ACCOUNT!

WHO'S A BIG GIRL? THAT'S RIGHT. YOU'RE A BIG GIRL

Cindy Maddera on Instagram: "Colony"

0 Likes, 0 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Colony"

It was a fuzzy dream. They aways are. I just know that Chris was there and we were supposed to be going to some festival parade thing, but I found myself in the upstairs bathroom of my childhood home surrounded by all the clutter of mom’s makeup collections. I had tried to tie-dye circles onto my romper but it didn’t turn out as I had hoped. I looked at Chris who had some expression on his face that I could only interpret as a look of disappointment. That’s normal. Chris is usually none too pleased with me in any of my dreams. I recognize that this is a manifestation of my own poor self esteem and that Chris was/is not actually disappointed in me. I looked at him this time and shook my head and said “I know. I’m sorry.”

Always apologizing.

The next morning, I found an email from Bluehost reminding me that hosting for my domain was set to renew in October. I still pay for hosting for Elephantsoap.com even though everything from the old space has been migrated over to Squarespace for years now. At first, I held onto that name because I thought that my blog would somehow blow up and turn to dust if I dumped it. I thought that search engines would be disrupted or that no one would know how to find me. I may have successfully migrated all of my old blog over to the new one, built the design of this current blog, yet I still feel like I have no idea what I am doing. It’s all a house of cards and it’s going to come crashing down any minute. I don’t know how this internet/webby thingy works. So I pay my hundred and something a year to Bluehost for peace of mind.

Michael has no idea I’ve been doing this. It is not on our budget spreadsheet and I charge it to one of my credit cards. I know…it’s kind of terrible. No…I feel really bad about it. When the email came up this time around, I asked the guys I work with for some advice. I brought up all of the above mentioned fears and they all told me that I do not need to hang onto that domain unless I just like the name and don’t want any one else to buy up elephantsoap.com. I thought about this and then I opened my mouth and started saying “I do have some emotional attachment…” Then my voice cracked with emotion and I had to walk away. I was completely caught off guard by the wave of tears that hit me. I hid in my favorite bathroom stall while I was taken over by wracking sobs, but I pulled myself together. Then I came back to my desk and cancelled the annual renewal for hosting on Elephantsoap.com. It doesn’t exist any more. I still own the domain name, but because of third party hosting mumbo jumbo this blog will no longer link to Elephantsoap.com. This only effects the links already posted on Facebook. Those links are now all broken.

And yeah, there’s a part of me that is really fucking sad about this.

Elephantsoap is Chris. His idea. His vision for me. It was more than him just handing me a blank empty sketch pad and saying “here ya go.” He built a space of code that translated into colorful borders and banners and said “write here.” It’s like he saw something in me that I still struggle to see in myself. I scoffed at it in the beginning. “What even is a blog? Why do I need one? I’m not a writer. I am not interesting.” But I started putting words in that space and pictures. Yeah, it was crap and drivel and navel gazing, but it was my crap. My drivel. My navel gazing. I’ve grown up though. The writing has changed; hopefully it’s better. The pictures I post have changed; hopefully they’re better. All of that started happening on the new space I made for myself. This, cindymaddera.squarespace.com, this is MY space. This is my vision. It’s where I don’t struggle to see the things that Chris saw in me all those years ago when he built Elephantsoap.

So, I’m going to take a moment to honor the gifts that Elephantsoap gave me and then I’m going to let it go.