A Time to Prune

(c) 2011 Trina Lambert

Spent yesterday mostly away from the computer—does yard work count as an Artist’s Date a la Julia Cameron? Well, I suppose for some it counts as a joyful activity, too, but for me, the benefit in turning to a physical and/or “domestic” task is that non-mental activities often help me jumpstart my creative thinking again, plus the task accomplished often removes a mental obstacle. As for yard work, I like choosing my flowers and arranging them a whole lot more than I like working in the dirt.

However, I can’t really enjoy the more creative aspects of planting if all I see is chaos in the rest of our not-so-great outdoors. So first I was just going to mow the lawn, right? Well, as with many ADDers, momentum is my great friend. Mowing led me to see certain weeds in the grass that just had to go. And, then I needed to mow over by our trellis of “killer” climbing roses. Seriously, when the roses have not been pruned, walking in that area of the lawn reminds me of poor Snow White’s run through the forest. Just ask my husband—we both know what it’s like to have branches grabbing at us!

Can you say obsessed? First it seemed silly to work in the yard and then shower for Pilates—I was going to sweat there, too. Already dirty and sweaty, why not do more once I returned home? When you’re like me, if you’ve got a bee in your bonnet, you better just keep wearing that bonnet and let the bee sting you again! Sting while the stinging’s good. (Thank goodness my young neighbor has informed me that not all bees die after one sting—that makes this metaphor corny but possible.)

Weeding and pruning. Don’t know about you, but I am long overdue for those activities, especially since last year kept me from most yard work—and from moving forward in my own life.

Yesterday in Pilates, my instructor wanted us to do an activity—for the third week in a row because it’s her new personal favorite—that I don’t think is good for me or any of us with lower back problems—which is most of the class.

Well, I modified my form so much that the activity really didn’t seem that worthwhile—and others did the same. I don’t know about them, but I spent a couple thousand dollars (yeah, read that and weep), put in a lot of extra exercise, had to stop moving way too much, and had to prune too many activities out of my life to have anyone else’s personal favorite activity prune any more from me.

Still, with the energy I didn’t use for that particular move, I came home and attacked weeds and any dead branches. Last year’s forced inertia left the lawn overrun by the detritus of nature and the house with other people’s possessions, so unless I throw myself into pruning and weeding, I will continue to be stuck where I am.

Some things will never again grow in my garden and must be cut away—without mercy—to make space for new growth. And, whatever else is toxic cannot remain to choke out that growth.

My body aches today while scratches criss-cross my body from those thorns reaching to hold me back, but I couldn’t stop myself. I wasn’t going to leave any more dead wood on my trellis even as I recognized the utter hubris of plunging into the thorns time after time. Truth is, I don’t mind a little pain if it moves me forward instead of backwards.

To everything there is a season . . . and this is a whole new season for me, baby.

Night–Sweet Guard of Dreams

(c) 2010 Christiana Lambert

Maybe I’ve always had mixed feelings about nighttime—or maybe those feelings didn’t begin until after my brother Scott and I saw a man in our bedroom when we were two and four.

As far as I know, that’s as scary as this story gets, but I don’t think that memory is ever very far from my consciousness. There’s not much to tell, really, except we both agree that it happened. One night, in the brief period when we lived in a rental house before moving to our own home, my brother stage-whispered to me from his twin bed, “Trina, there’s a man in the room. Hide under the covers.”

I hid and eventually fell back asleep. The next morning we both told the story to our mother, who doubted it until she discovered the cellar door unlocked. Though we had just moved to a town of no bigger than 600, apparently a man who was losing his battle with mental illness had a habit of entering peoples’ homes in the middle of the night. One resident woke to see a lit cigarette glowing in the kitchen and discovered the man relaxing at the table.

My brother Scott and I in 1964.

Put my early experience together with a vivid imagination and my quicksilver ADD mind, and you can guess that I didn’t really grow up falling asleep too well. My increasing levels of nearsightedness probably didn’t help either. Even though I lived in two more homes before I left for college and then again to strike out on my own for good, my insomnia never abated in my family’s homes.

Luckily, the worst of my insomnia ended with that final move. No idea why—I’ve lived in six places since—all different as far as I can tell.

Which is not to say I’ve made complete peace with the night.

First of all, let me say that I love staying up at night—it’s not just about avoiding falling asleep. I am the queen of getting a second wind around bedtime. However, I don’t really like mornings and I do “get” that if I stay up late all the time, then those mornings will feel even more unpleasant than they normally do.

Second of all, I know that sleeping with my husband makes a big difference. I’m lucky that I haven’t had to sleep alone much in past couple decades. Plus, he got me Lasik surgery which means I can see if any bad guys are in the house—haven’t seen any, thank you very much! Still, he’ll tell you that everyone in my family of origin—including my father, mother, and yes, my brother Scott, as well as our own two children—has or had some problems with sleep.

He likes to say something such as, “What do you people have against going to sleep? I like going to sleep—why don’t you?”

Good question. You see, I like sleep a lot—I just don’t like going to sleep.

After you go through all that sleeplessness when your kids are young—and then again when they’re teenagers and young adults—you really learn to like that sleep. Not waiting for someone to come home and/or living with someone on a vastly different time clock was one of the greatest benefits of our short empty nest period. Doesn’t it seem so ironic, though, that the time when my body slept best happened when I couldn’t sleep much because of my kids?

Let’s just say that lately we’ve been working on improving our sleep setting and our habits since these days it doesn’t seem to take much of a distraction to interrupt our sleep. First we had to deal with old dogs that had to go out in the middle of the night and who played musical dog beds all night—without the music, of course. Then we had to deal with a puppy—at the same time my back began hurting. Well, the puppy got older but then Sherman’s back started hurting, too.

(c) 2012 Trina Lambert

So our latest step in the quest for a good night’s sleep was saying goodbye to our waterbed (with much regret!) and hello to a new mattress, box springs, and bed-frame. The almost eight-week transitional process started when we put the mattress in the waterbed frame (can’t we ever pick anything not on back order??!!), then continued when we set up the new frame and added the box springs, and ended when I also got fitted sheets (never needed those before) and a new comforter.

Even if I’ll never quite forget my early experience, we are finally enjoying sweeter dreams.

Crescent moon on high.
Handful of stars in the sky.
Night—sweet guard of dreams.
by Trina (Lange) Lambert, Age 10

Babies Mine

(c) 1992 Sherman Lambert

What woman thinks she’s going to face infertility, at least if she’s relatively young and healthy? I thought you planned for the right timing and then everything else fell in place. And so it seemed at the beginning of our quest to become parents. After the second month we tried, we believed we were on the road to parenthood. However, that pregnancy slipped away from us within a couple weeks of receiving the initial news.

Well, I still thought pursuing the right timing was important for causing the least amount of disruption in my workplace. That’s when I started charting my cycles and noticing that some patterns didn’t seem right. While driving to work, I’d hear Bonnie Raitt singing “Baby Mine” on the radio, but I’d begun to wonder if there would be a baby mine.

Just under a year after the first time—with some additional help from the doctors—we’d merged back onto the road to parenthood. However, I’d stopped worrying about disrupting work—I was starting to understand that babies are disruptive—no matter what! But, we still experienced problems—which led to our discovering early on that I was carrying twins. I prayed at least one baby mine would make it. Through medical interventions, my focused behaviors, and the grace of God, those babies mine did arrive, just a little early but so healthy we only got to stay in the hospital one day.

Turns out that amateur who read my palm before I ever met my kids’ father had been right about a couple things: I did have twins and each was strong-willed, even if they weren’t both boys.

When your only two kids are twins, each developmental phase is new to you no matter what. If you are also blessed with strong-willed kids who also have ADD, you soon learn that helping to guide their individual development can be exhausting even as you love them. Add in advocating to schools and medical professionals and somehow life becomes so much more complicated than you ever expected.

Now those babies mine are legally adults in many ways—I can’t access their educational or medical records on my own—but they are learning about many of the difficulties associated with life after high school. The world doesn’t really care that kids with ADD are supposed to take longer to figure out how to manage many everyday daily tasks. In fact, the world doesn’t really care that science is showing that even the brains of people without ADD don’t really finish developing until they reach their mid-20s.

My son doesn’t know what exactly he wants, but he seems to be floating on, finding happy moments in each day. For him I worry that he doesn’t worry enough about figuring out how to find a place in this world. If college isn’t his thing now, what is?

And, my daughter—well, I mourn the happy-go-lucky child who brought sunshine into my life. I glimpse her and then she slides back into her worries and sadness. I’ve searched for solutions for her, but in the end that quest isn’t mine.

So we’ve reached the point when I can guide them to resources, but can’t make them access them. What a hard place along the parenting journey . . .

(c) 2010 Sherman Lambert

I’ve run my part of the course of both their developments—the steps aren’t mine to take anymore. I just have to trust in the process and know that I can’t really control the timing for when these babies of mine find their own separate ways in this world anymore than I could plan when they arrived in this world.

Though I don’t know the grand plans for them, Someone else does.

Growing Up Socially Awkward

Trina, 1964 or 1965

I was that girl who hid behind my mother when people tried to talk with me. Yet, I wasn’t a quiet kid—just very selective about sharing my words. I only let those in my inner circle know the real me.

Little girls with ADD can be chatterboxes or eerily silent—or both, as I was and am. What doesn’t come naturally to many of us is the give and take of conversation—which alternately leaves us staying away from social interactions or taking over the interactions. And, what we learn from an early age is that since we can’t quite trust ourselves to chime in at the right time, then we need to choose our social situations very carefully.

In school I felt very frightened about standing up in front of my classmates, even though I was at the top of my class. Just because I knew something didn’t mean it was going to come of my head in the way I knew it.

However, I had so many thoughts exploding in that head that I had a hard time keeping them in while in the classroom. I wanted to share them—not take over the conversation—but I didn’t always wait. If the teacher talked about something, I wanted to be discussing it. Those side comments I made weren’t to distract from the teacher but because what she said reminded me of something else.

But, I do know that I was distracting other people by keeping them from hearing the teacher. That shame was a constant companion throughout my school years. Sometimes it led to my silence, but other times it wasn’t enough to help me keep my thoughts in. Lucky me—I either got in trouble for not saying enough or for saying too much.

I didn’t know I had ADD back then. All I knew was that as one of the best students I was expected to know when to speak and when to keep silent—and I didn’t.

A lot of people with ADD just choose to live lives that allow them to avoid their areas of weakness. They don’t sit in church on Sunday where they’re expected to sit still and keep quiet—they do things, such as go hiking, where their movements and noise are expected and accepted. They especially don’t join group activities where they have a hard time listening and not talking—many will call such events too boring, but I bet some, like me, just don’t want to repeat their childhood shame.

Me, I just try to find places and groups where I can control my ADD enough not to get in trouble. See how juvenile that sounds? But we with ADD know that our weaknesses are often considered immature and inconsiderate—things we should have outgrown.

These times in which we live are full of constant noise, which makes everyone seem to have ADD. I find that more and more of the groups I’m in sound like Babel—we’re all talking at once. Half the time I can’t get a word in and the other half of the time I don’t let someone else get in that word. It’s not just me who doesn’t know how to interact anymore.

In each situation I keep trying to find that balance, but if I don’t, I can’t stay there—some situations just intensify my lifelong feelings of shame. Because I have to work so hard on knowing when to speak, I need to spend time with people who will allow me to be myself even if they have to remind me gently that I still have to let others speak. However, if I am considered disruptive for being myself, then I’m in the wrong place—I can’t afford feeling like that bad child again.

There’s a reason I like my keyboard so much—my internal editor knows not to speak impulsively through my fingers. I don’t send every message I’ve written nor publish everything else I’ve written. If I’m enthusiastic about what someone else is saying, I can share my thoughts without shutting out someone else’s thoughts.

Look, I’m all grown up, but I don’t think I’m ever going to be completely free from socially-awkward moments. Although I want to hear what others have to say, I’m pretty sure I’m still going talk when I’m not supposed to do so. The best I can do is to spend my time with those who will forgive me for the occasional gaffe just as I will forgive them. Otherwise, my retreat into silence will be no different than when that little girl hid behind her mother.

What I know now, though, is that I don’t really deserve to feel that small, no matter if I do make occasional mistakes.

No Fear . . . of Posing

(c) 2009 Christiana Lambert

Anyone else a runner during the running boom of the late 70s? Do you remember that some time later some studies came out that said running was actually harmful? What about the stir raised when running guru James Fixx died from running? I didn’t pay much attention to the hype, but it seemed the media often chose to pick up on the “running is bad” concept without analyzing studies or considering other factors.

I just thought a lot of people were looking for a reason not to do an activity they didn’t like in the first place. You know, the kind of people who are always doing the latest thing whether or not they enjoy it and whether or not it’s good for their bodies. I think the media buzz is happening again with yoga (and like it did with aerobics and Pilates and . . .)

Yes, I learned the truth—at seventeen—that running could hurt me. I ended up getting fitted for orthotics which helped me recover my health long term. The podiatrist said that running didn’t cause my imbalance problems—it just accelerated how soon they showed up and began affecting my life. Never again did I have the same obsession with running nor was I as naïve about the helpfulness of running, but I didn’t stop for good—I liked running.

You see, I didn’t run because it was “in” or the cool thing to do. For the most part it was a lonely experience, except for when I could meet up with my friends to do it or be part of a track or cross country team. Yet running often soothed my soul. I truly believe this was how I managed my undiagnosed ADD for so many years.

Enter real life obligations, children, and another undiagnosed condition that worsened—asthma—and running became less frequent in my life. It got to the point where I knew my weight gain was a risk factor for running, yet I didn’t know how to keep down my weight without running. This time I ended up with an injury common to inflexible, heavier, long term runners of a certain age: plantar fasciitis.

After that injury healed enough that I could use my feet, I switched to walking. Didn’t “everyone” say that was healthier anyway? I walked and walked—and continued to gain weight. With my feet problems, I couldn’t do any hard core land-based aerobic activities. So . . . I signed up for my first yoga classes.

By that point my lower back was hurting so much that I couldn’t get out of my chair easily. While I did find that yoga was helping in so many ways, maybe it wasn’t enough or maybe it just wasn’t fast enough. When I told my doctor, she thought I ought to add Pilates classes first to see if I could avoid physical therapy.

Here’s the deal: with yoga, Pilates, and walking, I did start to feel better—everywhere, but especially with my back and feet—and that ADD mind. And then I started to lose weight which meant I could move more vigorously, enough so that I could return to running and begin doing ZUMBA dancing.

So are all those things to blame for my recent back injury? Well, maybe. However, I will point out that my injury surfaced after I took off a week from exercise while spending most of that time sitting in a car.

Now that yoga is the new evil activity, it must have been the real cause behind my injury, right?

Really, I think that living and aging are behind my recent physical woes. As far as I can tell, people can get injured by moving—or not moving—or both as they age. When my father needed back surgery, it was because he carried excess weight and did not move unless necessary.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather earn my badges of aging from activity versus inactivity.

So I’m not going to stop practicing yoga even if I am more likely to modify my poses now. I have always gone to restorative yoga classes led by mature instructors who aren’t fostering a competitive environment. And I will argue with a teacher if I think a pose goes against the advice I am receiving from the medical practioners treating my condition—if I’m not going to believe them and follow their advice, then I need to stop seeing them.

I guess I have to say that if people don’t like to do yoga, then they should not be doing yoga to please others. They can take their chances lifting weights, swimming laps, or sitting in their Easy Chairs while I’m holding a Downward Dog—or attempting to get back to running again.

Maybe we’re all just running against the wind trying to maintain our bodies in the face of time, but I’d rather move than sit down to wait for the Grim Reaper to find me.

Ready for Wings?

(c) 2009 Christiana Lambert

You know my messy table isn’t really the problem—it’s just an obvious sign that deep down all is not well with my soul.

This is one of those years when I can’t talk myself into seeing the happy endings—or at least the unhappy endings that lead to deeper understanding and long-term happier endings. No matter what I said about wanting to be done with talking about unhappy topics, I am not. I can’t will myself to come up with the neat and happy moral of the story that will tie up a less-than-hope-filled post.

Although I’m feeling a bit like George Bailey on the bridge, I’m not looking to jump into the river. No, I just want to take that suitcase I bought with happy travels in mind—and run—anywhere that isn’t where I’ve been.

You see, I know God is hearing my prayers, but I’m having a hard time saying them. The good thing about God is He hears the prayers that have sunk so deep within us that we can’t even use our voices to speak them—they become so much a part of us that they rise from our very pores.

If nothing else, perhaps He’ll send me a bumbling Clarence to show me a better path than the one I am on.

Sometimes no amount of research or any continued pursuit for new solutions can fix a problem. And you especially can’t make someone else choose to see the hope in their situation if they prefer to see only loss.

You’re probably thinking I must be talking about myself, right? See, that’s the irony, isn’t it? So easy to see how to solve someone else’s problem, but then you look in the mirror and realize that maybe you’re so busy trying to solve someone else’s problem because it makes it easy not to be responsible for solving your own problems.

The years of trying to help others with celiac disease, dementia, depression, and ADD have taken their toll on me. I’m fresh out of perky solutions that are always met with a big “but”—because after all I have no idea how bad it is for someone else.

Well, the truth is they don’t know how bad it has been for me to watch them suffer. If I could, I would wave a magic wand and remove the problem. Would be much better than searching for other possible solutions that will never be good enough because the only solution the person really wants is to wake up completely healed.

They also don’t know how much I’ve suffered watching them refuse to consider anything but Plan A when I would fight to find them Plan B through Plan Infinity to aid in their movements forward. This week I realize I’m done being the pep squad. All that energy spent helping those who at this point won’t help themselves is making me feel like a failure. I know I am not—I tried, as God is my witness, I tried. Maybe I tried so hard that they didn’t think they needed to do so. But in the end all any of us really can do is help ourselves.

And during all those times of caregiving, I did not help myself. In some ways it’s just not possible to take care of yourself in the midst of others’ crises, but in other ways you have to be careful not to see any results as the only proof that what you did mattered. Some problems can’t be fixed despite anyone’s best efforts.

And so, I need a Clarence to come show me how I helped even if I could not beat back the demons of the diseases. I need to know that without me this place would have become a Potterville. Maybe I have a bit of a savior complex, but, by God, I’d like to know that sacrificing my potential trips around the world made some difference to others.

But short of that, the only thing I can control is the direction of my own footsteps in the future. A future where I stop trying to find solutions for everyone else and start looking for my own regardless of who is coming along with me on the trip.

Clarence, are you ready to earn your wings? Then help me climb down from this bridge so I can pack my suitcase for the trip of my lifetime.

Clearing the Table

(c) 2009 Christiana Lambert

Warning: this is not a happy little holiday post; in fact, it’s not even a happy little everyday post. No, it’s the post that should I get it out of my head might yet lead me to be able to sleep tonight.

However, this is not about sleeping tonight. No, I keep thinking that if I can just get the dining room table cleared during the daylight hours tomorrow, somehow I’ll find a way to salvage what’s left of 2011 and get myself ready to shed this year for the possibility of 2012. If you’re like me and have ADD and you’ve been through a lot of recent loss, you might understand how something as mundane as a bunch of random items on a table or any similar space can grow to appear as a physical manifestation of the condition of your heart and mind.

Yes, a year ago today began my mother’s last month on this earth. I can’t even tell you that was a bad thing because of the Alzheimer’s that had ravaged her mind as well as her body. But it was a very hard thing to watch her go in that way, to know that her brain kept everything—from her thoughts to her vocal cords to her feet—from working as they were used to doing. And to know that as inadequate as I felt, it was my job to hold her hand on that final journey.

I understood that the start of the new year would bring the end for my mother, which was really a kindness to both her and anyone who knew her previously. That part I accepted, as much as anyone really can. One day, after three years of daily concern for her—whether or not other capable hands cared for her—she was gone.

The thing is the losses kept mounting. My uncle died six weeks later and a few days later we lost our dog whose cancer had appeared as my mother was leaving. Sherman and I have been to too many funerals for friends’ parents over the last sixteen months, none more agonizing for me than those for people who were destroyed in the same way my mother had been. Even though our other dog’s life ended at a somewhat expected time, the timing in the midst of this year was hard to accept.

Of all the things I did to soothe my soul, exercise and maintaining my body’s strength brought me the most moments of calm and peacefulness. I had no idea that the other great joy—welcoming a puppy (and another dog) into our home—would negate much of what exercise could do for me. If I had known that that fateful long road trip to bring home our pup would take away so much of my strength for so long, I would have found another way to get him here.

That I am regaining some of my former energy does not make up for the months without it. I am so discovering that I crave using my energy for more exciting activities than the “have-to’s” of this past year, including the huge task of going through the mess left behind by my parents’ lifelong possessions—especially since I did not have enough of me to go around just to get through my regular daily commitments.

In fact, just seeing the table as it is tells me how ready I am to skip catching up. If there is any way to forgo another month of mourning, sign me up. I want to be a person who can converse without feeling compelled to talk about anything negative happening in my life, including in this blog. Oh, to regain the sparkle in my eyes and the spring in my step. Next time I have a hard time falling asleep, I hope it is not because my hips hurt or because my heart aches, but because I have too much I want to do.

There’s no catching up only starting anew. I can pat myself on the back for all I have cleared off that table, but in the end I am so over all the crap that has been so much a part of this year. I’m tired of it tripping me up and reminding me of what is past—I just want it gone. On the days when it doesn’t irritate me enough, I know I have become too complacent in this boring yet painful state. If I can’t bring back to wholeness what has been lost, then it’s time to rage, rage against the dark night that is this year of loss.

This is the next-to-longest night of 2011—just one more night until light once more begins its cycle of growth.

So now that these words have eased from me enough to let me rest for the remainder of this dark night, mark my words: today’s light shall shine yet on a freshly cleaned tabletop, open with possibility for what comes next.

Step in Time

(c) 2010 Christiana Lambert

Today marks seven months since my (underlying) injury flared up and commanded my attention—guess those muscles decided I needed The Fatal Attraction treatment—you know, “I will not be ignored!” Thus began the days when my steps became more like shuffles in time.

Not here to debate the best way to treat my type of lower back/hip injury. In fact, one of the more frustrating aspects of this injury has been deciding which school of thought and/or type of professional I should choose for healing. Anyone who has gotten better has an opinion as do people who work in the fields, but so often the reasoning and treatments differ.

All I know is that I don’t just want to reduce my activity levels permanently and focus on pain management—I want to heal what’s ailing me. Yeah, I know, just another Baby Boomer who can’t read the calendar, right? Maybe, but the truth is not only have I had to give up my fitness goals, but also I have had to live with reduced energy levels that are nowhere near what is normal for me.

This week—for the first time since those fateful April car trips that led to this more sedentary lifestyle—I have sustained energy all through my days. In fact, I would say I am finally feeling like myself again.

Yes, I have been like a stranger living in a strange body. Sometimes a person’s body changes permanently, but I wasn’t yet ready to accept that was the case with my body. I mean, the source of my injury was sitting down too much for a week? Really?

The real me walks very briskly. She may not accomplish nearly as much as she’d like, but it’s more for lack of focus than for lack of doing. It’s about going in too many directions at the same time.

Without my usual energy levels, dealing with life’s challenges has also been much harder. So much of my successful “therapy” has been movement-related. Despite keeping moving, I have had to proceed with caution, always thinking about whether what I’m doing will make the injury flare-up stronger. That kind of reduced activity level does not calm my restless mind in the same ways that moving without constant over-thinking does.

To be sure, I am putting more effort into relearning simple things such as getting into and out of chairs, cars, and beds, how to reach for or pick up items, and ways to better capitalize on the exercises I already do. For now I do have to over-think these types of daily activities in order to get back to moving more effortlessly.

But those types of everyday movements have stressed my body for almost half a century—I need quicker relief than simple retraining can bring about. So today I celebrated this injury anniversary by continuing the trigger point dry needle therapy I began a week and a half ago. In that short time I have begun to remember who I am and what I still dream of doing.

Besides miles to go before I sleep, I’ve got steps to dance—with a little bit more work, I am about to get stepping back into the time I still have.

Stitching in Time

"Fantasy"Sewing Organization from 4-H Days

Despite all those 4-H courses, I never turned out to be much of a domestic goddess. (Yes, you know you grew up in Nebraska if you were a 4-H member—whoop-ti-oop-ti-ay!) However, one thing I did learn to do well was sew, even if I just can’t get myself to do it regularly.

Sewing is not a very ADD-friendly activity—if nothing else, there’s all that preparation and then afterwards all the putting away. No matter how well I think I have my sewing area set up to help me, I find it difficult to start the projects. And ever since I upgraded from the trusty Kenmore of my youth, I’ve been avoiding my beautiful “new” machine—too many bells and whistles.

Sad to say, but every—and I do mean every—time I return to sewing, I have to relearn how my machine works. Makes me feel stupid—the operations person in me tries to tell me that maybe it’s just not designed well, but I don’t really buy that. All I know is the learning curve seems to be incredibly steep for me. Would go back to my old machine if it hadn’t been a casualty of twin hijinks many years ago.

That means I pretty much only sit down to sew when I have a deadline. (Hm, sounds like another ADD theme.)

What I like about sewing isn’t really the process and it never was—that’s part of why I’ve never figured out a good way to fit it into my adult life. No, what I love is being able to create something that didn’t exist before. Even better, so often I rummage through the fabric drawers or go to the store planning to make something that looks like “X” and end up with something that looks like the “Y” I hadn’t yet imagined. Amazing how the right trim or buttons can change the picture in my mind from exciting to “Wow!”

So, despite all the activities much higher on my “to do” list—including finishing the jacket I’d started for Christiana last winter—when she asked if I could make her a flapper costume this past weekend, I said I could.

Such a short, uncomplicated, yet creative, project with a very specific deadline spurred me to search for the machine’s product booklet—again.

After the two of us ransacked our fabric as well as my mom’s orphaned pieces, we settled on material that wouldn’t require extra finishing. Our first trip to the craft store led only to a tight black cap and its embellishment. The outrageous styles in the 20s meant we could take advantage of the almost-obscene practice of selling Christmas ornaments in October. Yup, a turquoise-feathered bird with a clip can go on her head—and her tree later this year.

Finding multi-color striped fringe changed our mental pictures again from a rather plain blue and black dress to one with color—she, the artist of many colors, and I, her mother who has painted our walls many colors, were ecstatic.

While I am always terrific at reimagining how a pattern might look with different colors and trims, I have never been able to do anything other than follow a pattern’s layout as prescribed. But any longtime seamstress will tell you that the cost of a pattern, especially without a coupon sale, will raise a project’s price quite a bit when it would be more exciting to spend that money on embellishments. This time I found an old costume pattern of mine (Wilma Flintstone and Betty Rubble) from my late 20s that didn’t appear as if it would be too hard to re-design and re-size. It wasn’t because I did it!

Trina & Krista (d. 1985) in 1973 wearing 4-H projects.

OK, first I had to grumble about the general disorganization of my sewing area, search and search for the darn instructions for my machine, and set up the machine with the proper thread and adjustments. All the while I needed to remind myself that this was no 4-H project—I didn’t have to worry about some judge declaring my inside seams a disaster and handing me a dreaded white ribbon (to all you non-4Hers: that’s like telling a person she should have just stayed home from the county fair because her work was no good!)

Several times I dropped the shift over Christiana’s shoulders—yes, she got poked by pins often—and assessed the fit. I just eyeballed the changes and kept going until the dress fit as perfectly as a costume needs to fit. The finished costume barely resembled the one we’d imagined when we first found the material. No, it was so much better.

(c) 2011 Cheyenne Kelton

I have always wanted to make my kids’ costumes no matter how much I complained about not having time—at least before I started and once I finished. Christiana’s mostly grown up now, but I can still do this for her—and for me.

And, yes, I did put away the pattern pieces, even if I still have more to do to get ready to finish that coat and even though it needs to be better sewn than a costume. Yes, you heard it here—I’m going back to what I began. I just can’t wait to see what those two-toned buttons and the topstitching do to make that coat even better.

Take that, domestic goddesses!

Surrounded

(c) 2010 Christiana Lambert

This past Sunday our church members lighted candles honoring those living with mental illness. Once upon a time, I would debate with myself whether ADHD was mental illness enough to justify lighting a candle. I know it is, but as much a part as it played in our lives, we seemed to have a reasonably functional family life.

Now that we know how a family can be changed by major depression, there’s no question we need God’s guidance as well as prayers—I don’t debate about lighting candles anymore.

While acting to ignite a wick is a choice, I don’t always have such a choice over which songs pop up unbidden in my head. As I’ve mentioned before, songs stick with me easily—whether or not I want them to do so. Maybe it’s the years of running, when a good rhythm can help keep me on pace or when I’ve even used the time to memorize songs. More likely it’s just one of the quirks of my brain—with a mother like mine, no doubt I began hearing music while still in the womb—before I ever saw this world, let alone walked or ran a step.

Raised on music, but fascinated by words, how can I help but be drawn to the combination?

Though memorization isn’t my strong point, words and notes start to sink into my brain when heard in tandem. Even then, I’m more likely to paraphrase than to store everything just as heard or read.

Seeing all those candles lighted by people who also must know mental illness too well stirred up songs and lyrics again for me. I wonder, how many, like my daughter and me, get hung up in the wrong part of The Fray’s “You Found Me” lyrics?

Where were you when everything was falling apart, all my days were spent by a telephone that never rang and all I needed was a call that never came . . .

Still, much of the music in my head comes from hymns and songs absorbed over years singing in church. Since I don’t have many bible verses memorized, often the biblical words I do access come from those songs. Now that I’m back in a choir, I have added more songs and words available to me in random moments.

My favorite bible verse—which I mostly have memorized—is Micah 6:8b: and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? And yet, I had never really paid attention to the previous verses until singing them—or not singing them, as it often turns out when my throat stops my song mid-note. Micah 6:7b asks: Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

I know that verse 8 declares no child nor living being must be sacrificed, but then why must my daughter be set upon with feeling so abandoned by my God—the God she felt so clearly as a child yet now wonders where He is. While she questions how He can be her God, I often fall to anger, asking how He could do this to my child, my firstborn, to whom he has given many gifts yet seemingly not the gift of believing that who she is matters to Him and to so many others in this world. Once again, I am stuck on the wrong section of the lyrics.

Just as Micah’s words tell me that God has shown me what is good, The Fray also sings:

You found me lying on the floor, surrounded . . .

I only have to look at all those candles to know that God has surrounded me with others lifting up my family. When we ask where God is, we need to look around us. Just because the healing we want doesn’t happen as we want doesn’t mean God has abandoned us. If we can’t hear Him calling on the telephone, maybe we’re looking for the wrong Caller ID. Everyone walking humbly with us is walking humbly with God. In the end, God doesn’t have to find us because He is always with us—and in all those who walk beside us in our darkest days.