Leisa A. Hammett

Summertime Reboot & A Writer's Discipline

My cozy intown writer's hideaway, Nashville Public Library. Photo: ©LeisaHammett.com, taken with my Droid camera phone and happily doctored with Pixlr-o-matic app--my latest down-time joyful "rest" obsession.

Until my senior year in college, a lap around campus equaled huffing-puffling exhaustion. Then came a daily commute to Knoxville, a full-time job and holding down courses during my last semester. Enter, my discovery and life-long commitment to the "religion," manna and necessity of exercise to reduce stress. It was easy as a young, single woman to make the time to run, go to the gym, etc. Ditto, as a young mother, to push my babe in a buggy 'round the neighborhood. Not so much as life became more complicated and "busier." But, I found the secret was looking at my schedule every day and finding time to get in a type of exercise that I enjoyed. Choosing one that I enjoyed and could work into my day was a key motivator to continue. Sometimes it has meant a 15-minute walk around the block--all I could squeeze in on certain days. (Better than nothin', so say exercise scientists.) For me, walking is the easiest and most convenient way to exercise. This last year I lost 10 pounds, in great part due to walking all my errands in my new-to-me suburban shopping-living district....Exercise requires commitment and discipline.

Writing is like that. A discipline. And, like exercise, it's easy-peasy to find "life excuses" not to do it. What's been working for me the last few years of blogging is carving out mini-retreats, even if it's a Saturday afternoon or a Saturday and Sunday afternoon on the sofa, the laptop warming the tops of my thights. Some bloggers baulk at blogging in advance but even Pro-Blogger does it--a month at a time. And since May of last year, I've been carving out away retreats at least once a year. This May I took five days in "Bum Frick, East Tenn."--as I dubbed it--rented an apartment and worked part of the time blogging through the month of June so I could go on auto-pilot as required by my daughter's intense summer schedule. The other part of the time was dedicated to editing essays for my next book and sending them off to my writing coach. January through March, I took a day at the library to work on book essays but when GraceArt overtook all my extra time with three spring shows, I knew a retreat was necessary. Here's a snapshot of book number two in progress, below. (There's a whole lot more essays written than this, but these are the edited ones.)

So, Wednesday and Thursday of this week, I cashed in my saved weekly childcare stash and hired a sitter to pick up Grace from work and IPAD camp and retreated to Nashville's version of a grand city library. (I feel like I'm in Chicago or New York in it's magnifient architectural confines.) Now my blog can continue on auto pilot, almost, through next month until school starts and I'd be able to make more progress on the book. It took this retreat to make any writing progress happen this summer. I could have taken the summer off, but then I would not have met my personal goals of keeping my blog running and making progress on having book two in some stage of completion by year end. Next I'm planning a two-day weekend fall retreat in September and also I'm pondering the days I'll allot each week, once school resumes at the start of August, to work on the blog and book.

It takes discipline. In discipline there is reward....In the words of my teacher: "Easy goes nowhere." Also, in my paraphrase: Buck up and get over your spoiled little child who wants to make excuses to get you off the hook. And in the words of of ISA director, Luis Cordoba: "Do what it takes to make your life work."

If you are a writer or another type of artist or have any type of project to which you are dedicated? How are you crafting your time this season? 

Good Morning, Gorgeous!

Good Morning, Gorgeous! And, hello again to another in my June (my birthday month) series on transforming our attitudes about aging. Early March, I attended a seminar honoring women and Dale Smith Thomas was the opening key note speaker. The first words from her lips were: "Good morning, Gorgeous!" 

Here's the backstory:

Thomas: "I am starting a revolution across the country to help women begin to feel great about themselves from the inside out!  If you have heard me speak you know that I challenge everyone in my audience to start each day by looking in the mirror and saying, 'Good Morning Gorgeous.'  I believe that many times we look in the mirror and we begin to think and say horrible things about ourselves. It's time to stop the personal assault and begin to embrace that we are special and unique. 'Good Morning Gorgeous' is just a small reminder to ourselves to focus on the positive and to transition from the constant negative external judgments and to start embracing and accepting our internal potential.  A gorgeous spirit, a beautiful heart and soul all begin from within. When we begin to embrace the "joy" of who we are, we will totally realize that joy is the greatest cosmetic a woman can have!"

During her brief presentation, Thomas shared that she once asked an audience of mostly women if they began their morning looking in the mirror and saying, "Good morning, Gorgeous!" One person raised their hand. And: it was a man. "Oh, course you do!" said Thomas to the man. "Of course you do!"

Thomas challenges women to say to at least 5 women/men each day, "Good Morning Gorgeous." "[Tweet it,] send it in an email, a facebook post, a text...or best of all, FACE TO FACE ! Let's plant the seed of joy and help others realize they are truly "gorgeous" from the inside out!"

You can follow Thomas in her "Good Morning Gorgeous Campaign" on Twitter at https://twitter.com/#!/GoodMrnGorgeous

And, as Thomas says: "Good Morning, Gorgeous!"

Photo: The Spiritual Coach, "Making the Mirror Your Best Friend" via Google images.

Aging Beauty

Turning 60, says the iconic Cybil Shepherd, on Oprah, was a turning point. "You decide what's really important in your life.

"Now that she's older, Cybill says her definition of real beauty has changed. 'If we don't work to develop that depth and [have] more fun too—and really laughing and crying as much as possible—learning to love ourselves as we age is one of the most challenging things we can do,' she says. "'Look at everything and find something you can love about your body.'"

I stumbled upon this real series on aging, via the mouths of some of our American beauties:

Say Linda Evans: "She never lost sight of herself. 'What you look like has nothing to do with what you think about yourself, and that's where we get confused,' she says. "The outside has nothing to do with the inside. And the thing that's so mysterious to me is everything we're basing our value on is outside of us."

Linda Evans on Aging (Short Video) [Link could not be embeded here.]

Meryl Streep image above obtained from the blog, "My Second Shelf Life." Don't know about you, but I prefer the 2012 version. You? Let's stop demonizing ourselves as we age! This post is a part of a series on aging during this month of June when I turned 50 plus two.  Age: Own It!

Our Differences & What “Others ‘Think'”

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in the dentist’s office waiting room. Grace, my teen daughter with autism, has been called back. I’m listening to the mostly unintelligible moans turned screams of an elementary school-aged boy, who, at the glance I stole when he dashed out the waiting room door into the hallway--a tired-looking, but patient older sibling following quickly behind him—has Down syndrome.

Places like this, when I am face-to-face with other parents--here, while perched on over-cushy sofas, waiting, like me--I am confronted, as are many special needs parents in such instances, with the perceived differences between my life and theirs.

Today I wonder, not for the first time, what they make of our lives. What do they think of my daughter? What do they think of me? Do they feel pity? Feel disgust? I don’t spend time caring enough, generally, to notice if they are staring at us or purposely staring the other way, though I’ve seen both enough to know it happens. Frequently. I cannot not notice. It’s in my line of vision most places we go in public. My daughter's autism is moderately severe. Her communication skills rather impaired. She's beautiful. She's happy. And obviously very different, which one would generally notice upon more than a 10 second glance. 

I’m grateful for the years I spent in therapy and all my seminar slutting I did before Grace was diagnosed and since. One of the most helpful tools I ever came away with from the transformational weekend experience, More to Life, formerly called Life Training, which I did 20 years ago, was this take-home message:

We don’t really know what other people think. Sure, we can intuit. We can even choose to obsess about it--and I've seen many special needs parents who do just that. But, what we think and obsess over may not even be real. Our intuitions may be off....Their mind may be so clouded with their own problems they don’t really notice the differently abled child in front of them. This is often the case. So is the other—noticing. In the end it comes down to me. (And, you--if you are in my position in any life situation)….We cannot control what others think of us. Nor, really "should" we care. Sure, ideally, we live our lives with integrity and kindness, doing our best and ideally that is communicated to others through our words and actions. And that’s the best we can do. Others judge us? (Or not.) So what? Really.

The Buddhist teaching of just being aware and then not attaching is something I’ve learned over the years in the meantime.  But starting out, I would pull out these questions I individualized from my Life Training [More to Life] experience for those times when my child was the one running down the hall or making unintelligible sounds....

These strangers that I think or I KNOW truly for sure are looking at us…They don’t know me. They don’t know this is autism. They don’t understand. They do not live my life. And regardless, I don’t care what they think!

I don’t care what they think…because in the end it comes down to what I think of me. I’ve got enough baggage of my own with the sheer facts of life, atop autism. I don’t need anyone else’s…or anyone else’s presumed baggage crowding my mind.

And the father at the dentist's office--the father of that little boy named Charlie, as I heard him called--? He didn’t seem to care either. Good for him. It’s called coping with the journey. And it’s a fabulous and mandatory skill. There are far too many other hurdles requiring our spiritual, emotional, mental and physical energies. Carry on. Release the presumptions. Unpack your bags. And, as they warn you at the airport these post 9-11 days, don't pick up anyone else's bag on your journey....

Welcome Summer!

Hello, Summer. Welcome, old friend. I have a love-hate relationship with you.

Summer, I realize I need you. I need you to remind me to slow down. You issued your luxurious reminder to me with gleefulness the first Monday after my daughter returned from her annual after-school camp with her aunt. You reminded me as we pounced into the twilight for our daily walk when it had cooled enough. We bathed our bare arms and legs in your evening air. You reminded me to cherish the childlike freedom you gift us each late May and June. I look forward to the getaways with a kind of fun and recreation that only you can bring.

Summer, I celebrate the croak of your frogs, the chirp or your crickets, the color and song of your birds and the glory of your blue-tailed, filigree-winged dragon fly and those ginormous blue skies dabbled with cloud art that don jewel tones as the days end.

I cherish your early cool mornings as I water my parched plants. To your heat that creeps and seeps and punishes as the days wear on...I surrender. That about you, summer, is not my favorite trait of yours.

Hello, Summer. Old friend. You are not the season that is my favorite. But I welcome your return. You remind me the cycle of life that goes on and on despite the hurries, worries and furrowing of my brow. You remind me that all really is well. That life does march on in spite of any dramas I may enact. Gently, you coax me to stop and cherish what you bring manifest each day on the tips of your warm, warm rays. You teach me, Summer. Thank you. Welcome back once again.

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Photo: LeisaHammett.com, Lena's Pointe, Black Mountain, N.C. One of the most relaxing vacations ever, I stayed at this rent by owner (which has now sold). Above the treetops, we sat out on porch rockers with this as our view. When the spirit moved, we'd mosie across Western North Carolina visiting the day's array of tailgate farmer's markets. Oh, I love Western North Carolina and will return to her mountains twice this summer.

Age: Embrace It!

 

She's a beautiful woman. She's amazing. She's the kind of mother-superwoman, whom, in our hearts, many of us would aspire to become. She's the president of the PTSA, she's a diplomat, she speaks before the board, serves on every committee, knows many of the students by their name and has carried this role to passionately make our problem-plagued school system the best it can be from the time her children entered elementary school through high school. When I took her picture at a party, she smiled and then instantly criticized how she'd look with the crinkles around her eyes. The beautiful, slim, blonde with runner's legs, this woman of poise, confidence and skill said that. I looked at her a bit stunned. She said this in the presence of her beautiful daughter who had the poise of a 34 year-old instead of a 16-year-old. I turned back for a moment to the focal point of the party, a sweet young woman who was having a baby. T., I said turning back to her, pausing briefly, "You're beautiful." She quickly quipped that her wrinkles just meant that she had a few more years on herself and she wouldn't want to be expressionless would she? The reference, of course to the beauty torture treatment du jour of smoothing skin with needles and insertion of toxins. Later, I told the daughter: "Your mother's is a very special woman." She nodded and smiled.

After the party was over and I returned home, I looked within. What did this bring up in me? A stab to my spirit. Pain to see the beauty of this woman, her aura and presence marred by a put down from her own lips. An insult based on how society says beauty must look.

Listen up, women!: We can't give in to this. We are aging. And almost all of us once we hit 30 know that something more powerful than the woos of our exterior sheath is going down in our insides. Read this post by my friend, blogger Brigid Nagle Day, about the relief and inner-knowing-strength of turning 40.

C'mon. Age is good. Think fine wine. We've endured the battle scars of souls that have served to make us stronger. We know more. We can better discern what matters. But, we forget. We deflate our spirits in the mirror of society. But, we can choose a different mirror. We can. We have one within. The one where our inner compass operates. One that tells us it's about the inside, the inner journey. It knows. It knows that we are beautiful because we are beings, spirits living a human life. And, that is the most beautiful thing of all, embracing all our years lived for what they have taught us, knowing that our exterior is not as elastic, taut or flawless as it was once upon a time. But being okay with that in the end.

You are beautiful, woman. Women...Know it. Own it. The numbers, too.

Today I'm 52-- as of June 10--and loving it. Join me on the quest to celebrate the joy, wisdom and the beauty that comes with escalating digits. Won't you?

Video by the uncommonly beautiful and inspirational (and my favorite) photoblogger Karen Walrond, author of The Beauty of Different. Go, Karen! 

"Fathers, Be Good to Your Daughters"

Lucky was the day I discovered the music and songwriting talent of John Mayer. (He's pretty hot, too.) Ahem....I realize he's been in some disturbing controversy in recent years. But the dude can write music. Recently I Googled the spelling of daughters--given that, for some reason, that's one of my bugaboo words. Ha! I saw this video to one of his very meaningful songs that says so much about so many of us women. Especially me now. "Fathers [...] Mothers [...] be Good to Your Daughters...." Watch and listen:

 

Happy Father's Day all you Daddy's out there. Remember, "Fathers be good to your daughters. Daughters will love like you do...." (Don't I know.)

Lessons Learned From Exhaustion

The Energizer Bunny ran out of batteries. Duh. And, I knew better. May came, the third art exhibit was hung, I went away for a private five day writer's retreat and I came back. Exhausted. The day after my return I went to my beloved gyn-nurse practitioner and asked her to check my adrenals, thyroid and hormone levels. The rest of the story is that all of my vitals were fine. I was just. Exhausted.

"So, you learned a lesson," said Sally, my Gyn-NP. "You learned that you don't do as many shows at one time. And when are you going to slow down and take a break?"

"Ummm. Memorial Day weekend." (Then, two weeks away.) "And, the first weekend of June."

Meanwhile, I received: graduation party invitations from two dear playgroup mothering friends of yore, the Democratic house party, two birthday parties for two beloved friends and then another from a new friend, the reception for two national autism speakers in town. There was no slowing down. I could feel myself on a treadmill and I didn't want to say no.

But, I did. I cancelled all my yeses and turned them into no's. Only, they were yeses for me. The night of the first party, I sat on my patio and ate an enormous salad. Grace and my companion by my side. And it was then that I knew, that although that week I had begun to restore my energy with more rest and I wanted to be at my friend's party, I needed the restoration of being at home on my patio surrounded by my sweet little garden.

"There's rest. There's relaxation. And, then, there's recreation," preached my teacher. "You need all three. If you have too little of one it imbalances the others and so the cycle continues. Too much recreation creates restlessness."

He was right. He is right. And the scary thing is that I began to instantly realize how many of my friends I've seen exhaust themselves over the years. How many of them live in a state of exhaustion. I was fortunate. I stopped before my chemicals got whacked out. My friends have learned they are exhausted when the doctor's report says so. Women all around us are living this way. Not saying no to others and to themselves. (The latter is the hardest one for me.) Oprah did it. For years I wondered how she could drive herself the way she did. And then she wrote how she blew out her thyroid.

So, my dear teacher had me write into my calendar when I would rest. When I would recreate. And of great importance, when I would restore the practices that truly replenish me. Daily: journaling, meditating, yoga.

So, here I am. Lesson learned. Lessons learned. I'd gotten away from the staples that I know are so necessary for balance in my life. The practices that, for me, keep it all in check.

Summer promises the same rigor as last. The same rigor as if I had an three-year-old and not an 18-year-old. Grace's interventions are scheduled in three-hour blocks all hinder-and-yond. Despite that, I'm scheduling in writing time on the next book, and time for those practices each morning. And overall, I'm declaring this my summer of rest. How about you?

Happy Birthday Grace Walker Goad: 18 Years Today!

"Persons with intellectual disability enjoy a special gift to emotionally connect with others on a deep level. May God let us, all, recognize and benefit from their God-given gifts. Persons with intellectual disability are 'blessed with a soul that is too large for their bodies.'" (aboriginal belief) Source: Ideal-Way: Seeing the Ability in Disability

Our children with autism, I increasingly believe, have come into this world vibrating at a higher frequency to hold the energy up for the rest of us to expand our consciousness. I and others believe their high numbers (1 in 88--however it had to manifest into this world, as well as others with developmental disAbilities, which are also on the increase,) are a part of the 2012 and beyond shift. They are wise souls. It our gift and our opportunity to learn from them. Perhaps with their filters and defenses, with their purity and lack of prejudices--which they seldom lose as most of us do by age three--they raise and hold the consciousness for the rest of us and teach us through their example and through their gifts and what we must learn in serving them. Perhaps those with higher functioning autism, the Temple Grandins and Dena Gassners, have come to help the rest of us piece together the enigma and better understand our special children. My autism mother friend, Gayle Lee, has taught me the most about the phenomenon and she writes about it her her book, AWEtizm.

I am grateful to have given birth to one of these special souls. The journey is challenging but crazy rewarding and amazing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Grace Walker Goad, for choosing me to be your mother. I am so honored. I love you very much, you precious, precious gift of a human being!

Happy Birthday, Grace. Eighteen years flew by in a freakin' flash.

"The days are long but the years are short." ~ Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project.

Photo: Lisa Linn Manley, taken at the Nashville Film Festival, 2012.

A Year Older & Looking Back

Funny. (Ha. Ha.) I thought I'd arrived on the summit of wisdom when I turned half a century two years ago. I wrote a post about being dubbed a "baby crone" by an older friend. Little did I know I was about to make a less than optimal choice that would serve as the greatest wake up call of my life. I went through with said choice. I got married for a second time. And a year later, I ended that relationship that had begun four years earlier. It took my father's death to strip away my own blinders and see that although I am a warrior in so many ways in my life, up until now, I was a wuss when it came to men.

I have spent nearly a year now working intensely with a spiritual teacher who has taken me to depths that never before did a therapist go. Not in my 20 years spent on numerous couches. I have learned that it's not about knowledge. Not about all the seminars I attended seeking the answers to a pain that I didn't even really know that I had. In survival mode, I had covered it up. In those four years, I covered my my body and my emotions with about 15 extra pounds of fat. I've nearly stripped it off in the last year. (Yes!)

My second marriage was a necessary and very painful part of my spiritual evolution. I crashed and burned in order to rise like a phoenix. I had begun to realize that there was an invisible wall barring me from growing into my greatest good. I am bursting through that wall now and it is so freeing. The wall was the choices I'd made in men that loved my ambition and yet feared it. And in their fear combated with sabotage--albeit sometimes unknowingly to the both of us. But, three fingers point back to me and ultimately all five do as well because these were choices I made. And getting down to the cellar of my pain, I now know that I was driven by patterns of love that I learned from the man who loved me first. His death liberated me.

Happy Birthday, to me. To Leisa. You are two years older. Two years wiser. Two years freer. The best is here and yet to come.

Photo: Lisa Linn Manley

Addendum: On aging, saw a good movie yesterday ~ The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel