First, thanks to linkage from (crossposted at) StreetProphets who made this all possible by giving me a ticket to netroots. Thanks to loggersbrat from SP who suggested my name to linkage, and who gave me floorspace to call "home" during the conference. Both she and ramara are amongst the best listeners I've ever known.
Thanks to Chris Thomas, his nephew Chris, Dan Demann and Al from FiveStepsForward media. They put me in the safest and most productive place I could have been for Netroots - behind a camera videotaping the panels. The videos that appear on the Netrootsnation site are thanks to them.
I learned some powerful lessons this week, I dare say the experience was an epiphany. This was a life changing trip.
I may fill in more later as I get my wits about me, but the weather here is good (rare) and my energy-savings projects on my house are behind schedule.
I have been moved; I am more inspired - dare I say inspired for the first time in many years - all because of the spirit and community I found in my first Netroots Nation.
There are more people to thank below:
I will ask you to read my very first diary on this site, inspired by the first YearlyKos in Vegas which I had not attended but witnessed vicariously through C-SPAN.
Being able to see your faces, shake the hands, and give a hug to the people who I have admired and shared with these last three years is a wonderful gift. I even got to meet Markos in person and say thanks to him for all he did - and continues to do - to make this community possible.
I'm afraid if I put up this list I'll be guilty of leaving out someone who rememberes something I did and said, and my memory will not recall it here. So please forgive me if you remember something that I have been overwhelmed and dropped. It will probably come to me in a week, accompanied by a face-palm as I regret my omission. I have to confess that I felt like a little kid, because some of you are genuine celebrities to me. I've never been one to seek out autographs, so to have the chance to reach out and shake hands or hug people like Teacherken, ClammyC, Jotter, chacounne, and to have real conversations with them...well, that beats an autograph on a napkin for sure. Even more amazing what when someone dropped their gaze from my eyes to my tag, and people who were until that moment total strangers said, with a smile on their face "SNAFUBAR!" was surreal.
One of the jokes that I related was because our identities are on our conference ID tags, and those tags hang from an orange lanyard around the neck just above our navels. So after all the years boys/men had been admonished not to look at a woman's chest, it was uncomfortable sometimes to find myself constantly meeting someone and then imediately dropping my gaze five inches farther down - on the way to the other place we're not supposed to stare at - just to make the connection. Sometimes if it had flipped over, one even has to reach out to turn the tag around, which might be seen as a hostile gesture. I was sure I was going to get my hand slapped.
Ok, I'm laughing, hope you are too.
So, I'm going to try to pour this positive energy I have gathered into some kind of bucket - maybe a better analogy might be a fuel tank - and do something with it. I know I couldn't pay back those who helped me get to netroots, so I tried to pay it forward. If that came through, then I got more reward than I ever could have paid for on my own. For four days, I finally thought like I was the battery instead of the motor that simply spins and generates heat.
Look for snafubar 2.0 in coming months. I must continue to make good of these gifts I have been given.
Thank you.
Thank you all.
Not just for the conference, but for these last three years of long distance community that came to life for a few powerful - alas all too short - days in August in Pittsburgh.
See you in Vegas 2010!
Post script: It was a shame that there was no Brunch on Sunday and that so many left and scattered Saturday so that the Sunday service that was held had so few people at it. Virgomusic of StreetProphets put together a program that made this atheist believe in the spirit of "us", even if I'm still reluctant to look for any spirit of "him". If anyone has the link to the video, please provide it, and I will cross-link it here. This atheist sat in the second row, and felt a kind of spiritual energy I often deny.
I often say that one of my laments about religion is the number of people I know who, in their desire to find "G"od, look right over the heads of the mortal being in the flesh standing right before them. The atheist knows that in our view, the only action that ever takes place is because some mortal being in corporeal form used that big brain we think we're so proud of, and moved his body to do something.
That is the spirit that I found all week long and on Sunday - we all did something.
And the prayers that were offered were not extended on condition that the recipient be any particular flavor of spiritual seeker in order to recieve them. (Sarah Palin, are you reading this?) Peace on Earth, goodwill to men - humankind. All races, creeds, genders, and nationalities.
Now that made me feel for the first time in a long time that I lived in the United States of America.
Maybe I will go seek out a Unitarian Universalist service, although I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to drive quite a while from this place to find one. I might surprise myself.
Because it's all up to us. The community of us - ALL of us.
And to those who crossed my path these last five days and left your footprints in my brain, I thank you. I was very scared on my first day that with my on-screen personna of snafubar in proximity to real people I might not have enough bail money if I pulled the pin on my angst like I can do behind the courage and anonymity of my keyboard. Turns out that my real personality found more catharsis and inspiration and purpose than I ever could have expected, and I'm going to strive to make something good come of that.
But I'm still going to rant when the occasion presents itself. :)