Leisa A. Hammett

December Views: Grinning Grace

Grace grins silly at the annual Mayors Advisory Committee for People with Disabilities. Her, mixed media work, above her, was eventually purchased by Vanderbilt Kennedy Center and given to former NFL Miami Dolfin Hall of Famer, Dan Marino  who founded the Marino Foundation. Photo: Vanderbilt Kennedy Center. Pictured here at about age 8.

Something different. That's right, Dear Readers. This month, it may not look too terribly different to you, but oh, it is to me. I try to post a week at a time, but the book complicated that and I found myself more than a couple of nights before a M-W-F post dog tired and at the keyboard when sleep long ago beckoned.

I got this idea from one of my favorite blogs, Chookooloonks, who got the idea at Hippy Urban Girl. HUG's author write that the month is supposed to be about slowing down and enjoying Life. (When we know that's seldom the case.) But a band a bloggers, nationwide, if not worldwide, are signing up to kinda sign off, at least a little, this month. More photos, less writing. And, as cool, Hippy Urban Girl explains, each blogger creates their own rules as to how often they post, (I'll continue three times a week within my core themes of "Autism, Art and All the Rest of Life,") and how much they choose write. (By the time I joined this third week of the month, I had at least two time-sensitive pre-posts that will have their usual word contribution.)  

So, the above, is some GraceArt, on this Wednesday, when I typically cover Autism/DisAbility issues. We are working on our new site at the time of this writing. We're getting there....Enjoy.

And, listen or read here for a brief mother-son interview on Story Corps via NPR's Morning Edition about having a special needs sibling. Short. Grab-a-tissue-touching.

Book Signing II

Our second book signing for From Heartache to Hope was a success yesterday, Sat. December 12. A number of folks came out to Starbucks, Highway 100, in Bellevue, because of the Tennessean coverage. Several were grandparents of children locally or elsewhere who live with autism. Some were friends from other parts of town, some were friends from long ago--high school days in South Carolina. One beautiful young, single fresh-from-college graduate was the daughter of a friend from back when her mother and I were both young, single and fresh from our alma mater. Some were friends from Nashville Women Who Blog and others from a local social media site for which I am a moderator. Thank you to all who came out to support our project.

Rebekah's photos from our book will come down from Starbucks on Monday, Dec. 21. 2009. THANK YOU Starbucks, Highway 100, Bellevue! We had our signing there because the majority of our book meetings took place there. They were most gracious hosts.

Next, we'll be presenting at the Brentwood Photography Group, Tues., January 5. An honor that tickled me as much as our Nashville Scene review. The next week, Tues., January 12, we'll sign at Nashville's beloved Davis-Kidd Booksellers and then close the New Year's first month with a reception and signing at Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, Thurs., Jan. 28.

December Views: Cyber Holiday Card

This Season and Always, May You Experience Peace. Joy. Love. HOPE. And, All Life's Blessings. Photo: www.RebekahPope.com

"Cyber Holiday Card..." Geez. Somehow that sounds so...sterile. But, that's what this is. If you are on my personal email list, you should have received this by now (or shortly). And nowhere's to you, Dear Reader.

Rebekah Pope, my collaborator in our new book, From Heartache to Hope: Middle Tennessee Families Living with Autism took this photograph during the memorial holiday weekend when Grace and the majority of our book's featured 18 families came to the studio space we used.  The purpose of our individual session was to capture a photograph for my biographical blurb in the back pages and back cover of our book. We chose another photograph than this one, but I’m sharing this favorite of ours because I believe it communicates my holiday message, above, to you and to also give you another “snapshot” of the quality of our now multi-media critically acclaimed and reader well-received still hot-off-the press book, available through our website, in addition to Nashville bookstores, at ASMT and Fields Publishing. You can also stay posted on the book’s evolution at my blog, here, and more so at my forthcoming blog dedicated to the book plus the book’s website.  Also, we’ve added these ** events and opportunities to our book’s local tour:   

Book Signing & Photography Exhibit Starbucks, Hwy 100 in Bellevue

Exhibit: December 8-20, 2009

Book Signing: Sat., Dec.12; 10am-12pm

**Presentation: From Start to Finish, How We Did Our Book, Brentwood Photography Group (Formerly Known as Brentwood Camera Club)

Tues., Jan. 6, 6:30 p.m.

**Book Signing & Mini-Exhibit, Davis-Kidd Booksellers

Tues., Jan. 12, 7 p.m.

Photography Exhibit & Reception Vanderbilt Kennedy Center

Exhibit: January 18 - March 29, 2010

Reception: Thurs., Jan. 28; 5-6:30pm

Also, we are in the process of booking a signing at Border's Cool Springs during April, national Autism Awareness Month. Stay tuned!

(And, yeah, I ran this photo here already.)

Fear. Sadness. Grieving.

Leaves. Trinidad. Photo, copyrighted, Leisa A. Hammett, from our forthcoming travel blog, DeeLeisaOus Travels.

Fear. Sadness. And, Grieving. As I came into consciousness this morning, anticipating the annoying ring of my cell phone's programmed 5 a.m. alarm, those three words came to me. Words to communicate how I am feeling with the news from my daughter' psychiatrist yesterday that she needed to go to her neurologist and have an EEG. The psychiatrist said he was definitely seeing seizure activity during my daughter's neurofeedback session.

The alarm rang, I stumbled through the ritual movements. Grabbing my robe. Weighing. Squeezing half a lemon into a large glass of just-poured, chilled, filtered water. As I began to awaken more, there is was. This little burst of feeling in my core. Deep within the center of my chest. Joy.

As I moved to gather my journal, taking time for a few yoga stretches first, I felt surprise.  Surprise for how much these feelings were like those I had experienced so many times the last six years following my divorce. Again, following the break up of my first post-divorce breakup.  Or, the two 24-hour periods I broke up with my now fiance or contemplated doing so.  (I sometimes wonder--this is a loaded statement that could be taken so wrong--if leaving once somehow makes it easier to leave again.)

And here I am experiencing all these feelings. Again. No relationship with a significant other is being left. Yet the feelings are the same because the feelings come from the place of Grief. And while I am not leaving a relationship with an individual, I am leaving something. I am leaving a place. And, I'm entering a place of change. A place of homeostasis. A place that I thought was safe but that I have found out is not.  Meaning, that I have learned that we are not free of potentially harmful seizures. We have arrived again on their shores. Grieving is about changing from something that you thought existed. Grieving is about leaving something, someone. Change.

And then I go back to that tiny burst of Joy in my heart and relive all the feelings that follow it. I recall familiar mantra that I said to myself in my half sleep: It Will All Be Okay. IGBOK. Because it will. As moved through the morning routines, I familiarized myself with what I know. That it always works out.  That is the way Life is. It doesn't make pain and suffering go away. It doesn't mean a fairy waves a magic wand and make the circumstances go away. It means that Life moves on. And I will and am moving on AND THROUGH these feelings of Grief. Once again. 

And that is Life. I cannot always control what happens. No one can. But I can--we can--control my our response. I learned this news about my daughter the same afternoon my first book came off the press. And like so much of Life there is Joy. And there is Pain. It is important to feel and experience the Pain. To walk on through it. And then to Remember and to Connect to the Joy that is there waiting at the end of the Pain and even amid the Pain.

My posts are written in advance and "stockpiled." I write them in present tense though by the time they post, the events may have taken place weeks, days, months ago. This post is also a follow-up of another. If you are visiting The Journey with Grace for the first time because of our Tuesday Tennessean Bellevue supplement or today's Davidson A.M. supplement--Welcome! I hope you'll return. I post about Autism, Art and All the Rest of Life on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Subscribe, above, for free, via email or RSS feed. FYI, I'm in the midst of tweaking my site here as I've come up on my one-year blog-a-versary. 

Practice Acceptance

Image & post, copyright: Leisa A. Hammett

The Voice. There it was again. As if someone turned on stereophonic speakers within my head. Really. Last time it spoke this way, I was at a red light. I explain here. This time I was applying mascara. (Not at a red light. Nor was I applying it at a red light the last time I heard The Voice.) (Yeah. I know. This is certifying fodder....)

Ahem....Anyway, this time this is what it said. And like the last time, I decided I needed to listen. Simply, in stereo between my two ears:

"Practice Acceptance."

Since the mascara incident, I've been amusing myself with the visitation of The Voice once again and the words it spoke. And as before, I knew I needed to hear them. I've spent the fall feeling anything but zen about the treadmill my daughter's otherwise perfect high school experience has set me on. Or, rather, the truth is that I set myself on. No regrets. For my child with autism, I chose the best high school; the best special education program; the best special education teacher; the most inclusive-minded school, student body and general education teacher-wise, that our metropolitan school system has to offer for high school. Yet. The Schedule. Is. Hell. And that's me, the not accepting part, focusing on it ad nauseum three months into it. I knew I'd be commuting at 6:30, getting up no later than 5:30 and if I'd thought to calculate, spending two hours for two one-hour round trips just to get her to school. Next year will be better I tell myself. Then I will live in that school of zone when I remarry. But, damn. This is hard.

Excuse me this post will you? Excuse me while I bitch about this a moment. While I twist, turn, squirm and wrestle and figure it out a little more. Aloud. Loudly. I'm tired. I don't like being tired. I am a high energy person. A multiple plate spinner. Now, IF I can manage to finish the basics by 9 p.m. and get to bed and I can discipline myself to get up by 5, then I can do a few yoga stretches, maybe scribble in my journal, meditate for a few minutes, read a meditation...before I hop in the shower. And I still manage to leave 10 minutes later than I "should." Those essential practices for me that give me balance that I used to spend 1.5 hours doing before I took Grace to middle school each morning and then and came home to start my work. The work time now begins at 7:30. And lemme tell you 1:30 in the afternoon comes too fast. We tend to stay in town running errands or making appointments and sometimes an evening event. We aim to get in a walk. We come home, prepare for the next day and then try real hard to get to bed by 9 so that we can start the day over. I. Do. Not. Like This. If I owe you an email. Please forgive me. If it was about the book and basic survival it Got Done. I think. If it wasn't, well, again, my apologies.

I am trying to figure out what I can do differently. Be a little more organized and disciplined than I already am? I've hatched an idea of how to maybe combine a yoga and a meditation class (making the time and expense worth of hiring a sitter) so that Grace can swim at the gym meanwhile.

I know that my fighting it, my arguing and wrestling the reality of all this does. No. Good. So for now, I'm thinking. Thinking hard on that stereophonic message from whomever. The Universe? God? My Inner Wisdom? All the same, maybe. I am at the threshold, not through the door. I've received a message of Awareness. It took stereo to resonate within my brain and make me Listen to what I already knew. The practicing part? I'll aim to get there. And I. Know. I know that one reason I'm so snarly gutted over it all is because I have not been meditating regularly. I'll get there....Sigh.

That First Fall

photo copyright: Leisa A. Hammett

That first fall. I remember it well. Not the first fall of my life. The first fall of my autism parenting journey.  Nine months had passed since Grace was diagnosed, at age 32 months, with autism. By fall, our small family was lost deep into the bowels and buried in the grind of early intervention. “Good autism mothers” stayed in the observation “closets”—those ridiculously tiny rooms where us mothers would cram behind a two-way mirror to watch our children’s therapists and learn to emulate their techniques at home. Into those small closets would be dragged many a mother’s baggage. Un-dealt with personal issues and often, massive, unprocessed grief. Quickly, I checked myself back into therapy to unpack some of the bags I realized I was toting. And then I checked out of my child’s therapy. Often.

I went to a small liberal arts college of 1,800. I still can’t fathom attending a large-get-lost-in-the-crowd-university. But something about the later experience intrigued me. I got my chance to attend a much bigger university, vicariously, when Grace attended therapies on the Vanderbilt University campus.  So, in she’d go to the room on the other side of the closet's two-way mirror and out the door I’d go for my own version of therapy. Sure, I did stay and yuck it up with the moms. I did hours of observation, but often I used the time to work on me. To exercise, soak in Vitamin D, breathe fresh air and sort out my new-found world.

Twelve years into the journey, those grueling early days of daily rotations of individual speech, occupational, group therapies are ancient history. But, I found myself back on campus the other day now that Grace’s psychiatrist moved his neurofeedback practice closer to the university. And, as I escaped his office and took in the grand architecture and the visually edible palate of the trees, I thought back to one of the keen lessons of that first fall.

I recall driving, early in the morning, in the crunch of the leaves, maneuvering my way about campus and noting with tears in my eyes, grieving over the unexpected change in my life, that it was the most beautiful fall I’d ever seen. And, I think it will always be in my heart’s memory. Many have written about the phenomenon of how pain heightens the senses, both those that sense the pain and those that sense Joy.  Our psyche’s often don’t discriminate.  And that fall, amid the pain, I began to see and feel all about me the vividness not only of my pain but of the beauty of the world that I lived in.  I felt great pain and yet, I was learning that I could also tap into great Joy. And that, learned only on, would become my recipe for autism and Life survival....

Artrageous Redeux

Our book designer Mary Sweeney; publisher Tim Fields; Trickett Honda's Reed Trickett, ASMT Director Amanda Peltz, project originator, coordinator and author--moi.

Clever copy was intended. Virtual stacks of posts are ready to be published. Only, they ain't about Art. And I didn't do my homework. Waited until the last minute. And this post is supposed to be about Artrageous. Thursday found me flittering about town to half of the galleries that will be featured on this year's Artrageous. Friday I'll take the other half on. And then Saturday night The Fiance and I'll dress up in some Willy Wonka-ish garb and we'll attend the real shindig. Thursday and Friday featured gallery visits were to deliver postcard publicizing our book and our upcoming signings and exhibits, starting with Our Book Launch, Sunday, Nov. 15, 3-5 p.m., L. Greer Gallery, Edge Hill Village. (You're invited.) At 10, Thursday, part of our book team gripped and grinned with Reed Trickett, owner of Trickett Honda in Rivergate who made a generous gift to our book project to help with expenses incurred and to purchase one book per family featured in it. One badly needed manicure later (afterall, I will be signing books Sunday,) plus a sit-down interview with The Tennessean AND a evening speaking engagement and here I am....(We also scored an absolutely fab review in The Nashville Scene today.Not available online, apparently.)

So, I'm resurrecting this from LAST YEAR. Bone tired and behind, I'm calling it quits. For Thursday night and launching Friday's post. Ciao!

Last year's blog Artrageous coverage:

Art-rage-ous. Think about it, said Jeff Rymer of the self-named gallery. When the Nashville CARES Middle Tennessee Aids support and education charity benefit was birthed 21 years ago, there was rage against the plight of the disease swiping precious lives. Now, it's more like Out-rage-ous Good Time while drinkin' Absolut and viewing Fine Art. And a grand, good time it was. It's the one time that this straight gal sees gays so outwardly celebrating in such great numbers within the mainstream of this city. Tasseled dragqueen flappers. Pinstriped fadora-ed gangstas. The theme at this year's was the Roaring 20's. It roared. And the art. The art's all still up there and out there for those who didn't catch the event's Van Gogh busses. And it's worth seeing. Some of my night's faves:

...The rest here.

Plus my City Paper coverage.

More to come.But, first I'll leave you with a taste of this year's Artrageous with the Steven Frenkel's "Relocation Specialist," showing at the uber cool Finer Things Gallery on Nolensville Road. I'd say Frenkel's work, below, is a little bit like my Thursday! And maybe all of my life right now.

Joy&Pain (A Mini-Grieving Series)

The call came. About six days early. Our publisher left the message on my cell phone at noon: "They're here." They're HERE! Our labor of love had come home from NICU--the printer. After nine months of active gestation, in September our team sent our babe to the printer. And now our baby was coming home from the hospital.

It was four hours before I could complete my meetings and commitments in another part of town and arrive at our publisher's office. As I made the drive across town what I did feel was not Joy. I was confused at my "lack" and began to examine my feelings. What I did feel was Pain. My daughter's psychiatrist again had seen the abnormal activity during her neurofeedback session that afternoon. He urged me to call our neurologist and schedule an EEG. This after learning that our health insurance might end early spring after an audit. If we get the boot in March, then we are responsible for paying for all expenses incurred in January and February. (And people DON'T want Healthcare Reform?!) When I called the neurologist's office the soonest appointment I could get was late December and I must see him before an EEG is ordered. And those things aren't scheduled quickly. Sigh. Worry. Fret. Wring hands. That was what I was doing as I made the trek across town. Only, instead of wringing my hands, they clenched the steering wheel.

Once I examined and diagnosed the feelings, giving them names, I traveled a couple more miles. I had put the top down. It was a gorgeous 70 degrees back dropped by lushness of yellow and orange maples. I switched off NPR. I just could not deal with injustices in Iraq right now. I decided to wrap my feelings. I envisioned centering them in a square of thick, silk Japanese cloth, wrapping them up, one side at a time, overlapping the corners over the bundle. Then I envisioned putting that bundle of wrinkled-brow worry on a shelf. This allowed me to tap into the excitement that my first book was hot off the press.

Ironically, I thought later, I had written a book about 18 families living with autism and all the while, I, too, was living with autism. I'd been in this place before.  Knowing that Grace has seizures is not new. We've just been able to not have to treat them until last year and then with a very mild drug. But things appear to have changed. And I thought about my philosophy and what I know is true: It. Will. Be. Okay.  Five years ago, fresh from my divorce, I learned that Grace was experiencing benign myoclonic seizures. I told a friend who had raised a son with autism and had endured way more than I will ever experience on many fronts. She told me this simple truth: "Oh, well. You'll deal." To some that might sound like an unsympathetic response. But D. and I laughed. We both knew she was right. I will deal. And I did. And I will continue.

So. Back to Joy. Our book is beautiful. After months of arduous labor, our photographer-designer-author/project originator & coordinator (that's me) and our publisher had pulled it off. I took it with me to the salon where I purchased hair goo. To the office supply store where I bought felt tip pens to sign it, meanwhile showing it to the tech help who'd rescue my laptop that had survived a summer of writing only to crash two weeks after we sent the book to bed. I enjoyed the oohs and the ahhs, the stunned and admiring looks as I shared it with the staff I knew at both locations....Okay. Yeah. I can do this. I can do Joy. I can. And, isn't that Life after all? A mixture of Pain...but redeemed...by Joy. And that part about the health insurance...it may not happen. It is a possibility, but my thoughts had leaped, soared and astroplaned to a place in the future. A place. That. Does. Not. Exist. And may never. So, I'm going back to the present. And feeling...Joy.

Our book is out. WOOT!

Join us at our Book Launch--a photography exhibit and book signing--Sunday, November 15, 3-5 p.m., L. Greer Gallery, Edgehill Village. More events to follow!

In the Community of Motherhood

Photo: Rory Hamilton

The act of becoming a mother means that some invisible hand of life-emotions reaches down into the very pit of your heart and takes a wrench hold.

You will never be the same.

You have joined the universal community of motherhood and. there. is. no. going. back.

If one is alive, human and fully emotionally formed, there is a deep level of compassion that is permanently implanted in you that elicits tears of compassion at the thought of a child being hurt, another mother losing her babe, another's joyous occasion of giving birth to life just as you have, etc.

You're stuck.

You will be this way forever.

It is a good thing.

I believe this is why women are less prone to violence than men. We have literally given Life. And, it is our innate beings to preserve Life and to care for and nurture it. I love being a woman and a mother.

It is a true gift to be one and to have inside of me this well-spring of emotions shared by mothers around the world. Early into my own motherhood journey, I recall being in awe upon arriving at this shared destination. I can also remember first feeling this fullness of compassion and magical connection to all mothers everywhere. I knew that I had arrived and tapped into something deep, bonding and sacred and that is was a blessed gift not to hold lightly but to honor and to cherish.

Here's to the beauty, the fullness, the decadent brimming heart richness, the lush yummy-ness of Motherhood. And to All Mothers Everywhere....

They Really Do Come with Instructions

*Photo: Rebekah Pope, From Heartache to Hope series

We're told a lie when our babies are born. It's a lie the doctors tell us. Our grandmothers and mothers tell us. Our neighbors and strangers tell us. They tell us that our "babies don't come with instructions."

I beg to differ.

I think they do.

The instructions are not in a manual. No baby book. They are internal. It's something within us all, male and female. And it's called, simply, intuition.

The problem is that we often can't hear this simple wisdom from within. We can't hear it because we've been taught by our parents, by our culture, by ourselves. Not. To. Listen.

I decided to listen. I thank La Leche League and Attachment Parenting advocates that encouraged me to do so. And I listened again when my toddler was diagnosed with autism.  I had to drown out the noise of the cure du jour. Those that accused me of bad parenting because I chose not to strap my child in a chair at a miniature table in the kitchen and drill her in Skinneristic routines. It was hard. But I'd already learned the value of listening. I was rewarded with a knowing that I was doing what was right for my family. My child.

My child came with instructions. I only had to listen. To her. To my heart. To follow it's message has not always been easy. But by getting still. By listening again and again, I've come home. To my center. And to her heart.

Absolutely. No. Regrets.

*I find it amusing and a bit bewildering when I'm often asked if our book, From Heartache to Hope: Middle Tennessee Families Living with Autism--due from the printer in less than one week--has pictures of Grace and myself. The answer is yes and no. A similar version of this photo, above, but with our eyes open, accompanies the inside and cover bio blubs. Otherwise, I am simply the author (and originator and organizer) of the book project. I am the journalist/storyteller for 18 special families. And their pictures, not ours, capture the reader's eye page after page, their stories, not mine tell of the heartache. The hope. And though it is their stories and not mine, it's our story. Together, these 18 families shared pieces of the autism puzzle. It is their pictures and their words that tell the universal autism story.