Great Grandma Emma May

January 1, 2012 By Gina Lynette 2 Comments

Edna takes after quite a quirky collection of creative ladies. She’s pretty sure some of her perseverance comes from her Great-Grandma Emma May, who made this little blanket by feel after she could no longer see the stitches.

I’ve had this little 6 by 8 granny square afghan since I was a tiny child. It’s made it through moves and purges and floods and hurricanes and, understandably, none of the folks who have pilfered things from me over the years thought to take it. It’s a favorite — not because of it’s beauty, but because of who made it. It is, quite literally, the only relic I have from my father’s father’s mother and she made it for me.

I’ve stared at this little blanket for over 3 decades and wondered why my “Gramma May” used red thread to put it all together. I’ve also been curious about the placement of the colors. It appears truly random. It’s quirky, no doubt. My knowing that she was going blind as she made these little blankets (she made them for several of us great-grandbabies) helps explain some of her choices.

At any rate, I love this little blanket. I love the hands that knotted the yarn. I kind of like imagining that some of her affinity for crochet was passed to me and, along with it, her tenacity and ability to survive in a pretty harsh reality and still manage to make beautiful things.

Filed Under: Blissification, Reflections Tagged With: Crafts, Crochet, Edna, Family

Making the Moves so that my Child can Dance

November 8, 2011 By Gina Lynette 4 Comments

I’ve been struggling with something for a while that suddenly became very clear for me this week.

Several months ago — after I got past the shock of having Berns enrolled in a private school that allows him to work from home — I started getting these little nudges to do the same for Gillian. I kept batting them down for several reasons. As I worked through each of my concerns I was left with two remaining excuses to keep things status quo: we love her team at school and things weren’t “bad enough” to make a change seem worth the drama.

So, as these things tend to go, the more I turned away from this intuitive nudge, the louder the signals became. I do believe in purpose and order in our universe, even when I want to pretend otherwise. I knew we were headed this way, but kept telling myself “in middle school!!” and then when even that timeline seemed to be stretching it as we watched Gillian getting more and more uncomfortable, “the end of the semester!!” So, it really came as no shock when I got the call on Friday sending her home for the 4th time in 2 months with nits in spite of endless poisonous and prescription treatments, combing, and laundry.

But I was still kind of in the stew. And then I “accidentally” rediscovered the link to Sir Ken Robinson’s TEDtalk on creativity. While I don’t necessarily agree that schools — in general — kill creativity. I do believe that they are a better fit for some kids than for others. In this talk Ken talks about a famous dancer and choreographer, Gillian Lynne. Yes. That’s her real name and its real spelling. I’ve read the book he references (It’s actually titled “The Element”) and bawled when I read Lynne’s story. It reminds me so much of two of our girls — Skye, our professional dancer, doughnut maker, and upbeat ed assistant; and her baby sister, Gillian.

I’ll include Ken Robinson’s 19-minute TEDtalk on Creativity and the three-paragraph excerpt that won’t stop running through my head here.

And the third thing about intelligence is, it’s distinct. I’m doing a new book at the moment called “Epiphany,” which is based on a series of interviews with people about how they discovered their talent. I’m fascinated by how people got to be there. It’s really prompted by a conversation I had with a wonderful woman who maybe most people have never heard of; she’s called Gillian Lynne –have you heard of her? Some have. She’s a choreographer and everybody knows her work. She did “Cats” and “Phantom of the Opera.” She’s wonderful. I used to be on the board of the Royal Ballet in England, as you can see. Anyway, Gillian and I had lunch one day and I said, “Gillian, how’d you get to be a dancer?” And she said it was interesting; when she was at school, she was really hopeless. And the school, in the ’30s, wrote to her parents and said, “We think Gillian has a learning disorder.” She couldn’t concentrate; she was fidgeting. I think now they’d say she had ADHD. Wouldn’t you? But this was the 1930s, and ADHD hadn’t been invented at this point. It wasn’t an available condition. (Laughter) People weren’t aware they could have that.

Anyway, she went to see this specialist. So, this oak-paneled room, and she was there with her mother, and she was led and sat on this chair at the end, and she sat on her hands for 20 minutes while this man talked to her mother about all the problems Gillian was having at school. And at the end of it — because she was disturbing people; her homework was always late; and so on, little kid of eight — in the end, the doctor went and sat next to Gillian and said, “Gillian, I’ve listened to all these things that your mother’s told me, and I need to speak to her privately.” He said, “Wait here. We’ll be back; we won’t be very long,” and they went and left her. But as they went out the room, he turned on the radio that was sitting on his desk. And when they got out the room, he said to her mother, “Just stand and watch her.” And the minute they left the room, she said, she was on her feet, moving to the music. And they watched for a few minutes and he turned to her mother and said, “Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn’t sick; she’s a dancer. Take her to a dance school.”

I said, “What happened?” She said, “She did. I can’t tell you how wonderful it was. We walked in this room and it was full of people like me. People who couldn’t sit still. People who had to move to think.” Who had to move to think. They did ballet; they did tap; they did jazz; they did modern; they did contemporary. She was eventually auditioned for the Royal Ballet School; she became a soloist; she had a wonderful career at the Royal Ballet. She eventually graduated from the Royal Ballet School and founded her own company — the Gillian Lynne Dance Company — met Andrew Lloyd Weber. She’s been responsible for some of the most successful musical theater productions in history; she’s given pleasure to millions; and she’s a multi-millionaire. Somebody else might have put her on medication and told her to calm down.

–Sir Ken Robinson, TED 2006

I can’t watch that video or read those three paragraphs without knowing, deep in my intuitive Mama soul, that Gillian needs to spend her days feeling successful and happy and dancing and creating art and writing stories and, yes, getting the core curriculum under her belt. She’s spent enough time trying to hold it together and be a good girl and make it through a day only to lose it and be embarrassed by her own inability to sit still and be quiet and wait for others to catch up to what she’s figured out hours or months ago.

As I’ve been struggling with this decision, Gillian’s been making plus and minus lists all Fall as we tried to figure out what parts of her day and week are working and which ones aren’t. It’s narrowed down to the fact that certain people are wonderful and important to her, she wants to participate in her class’ holiday program, and the rest is painful.

So, as awkward as the timing is, my husband, wasband, and I have talked it over and we’ve asked Gillian for her input. We’ve all decided it’s time to enroll her in The Farm School Satellite Program so that she can catch up on what she’s missed while being out of class because of the endless nit picking — both the literal kind and the more hurtful social kind — that she’s encountered this Fall. She’s ready to make the change and we, finally, are too.

The process is pretty simple. I’ll enroll her in The Farm School, they will request her records be transferred, the local school system will want any textbooks and library books back, we will sign an “everything is in order” form at her elementary school and she’ll be transferred.

Gillian had one request and I’m hoping we can make it work. She really wants to be able to go to school and see her classmates and support staff and say goodbye to everyone. The end of the school year is always excruciating for her, so I know this will be tough.

But, she’s a brave, funny, kind, loving, and talented girl. She’ll be fine.

I, on the other hand, may need to set a schedule to rewatch Sir Ken’s video to remind myself why I’m taking this leap with her.

Filed Under: Happy and Included, Homework, Pointing Forward, Reflections

Boo’s Reading: A Dog’s Purpose by W Bruce Cameron

October 24, 2011 By Gina Lynette Leave a Comment

On Wednesdays, Berns and I go to several appointments across town. There isn’t time to come home between them, but there is enough time to get some lunch and take a look around in a couple of shops. Sometimes we hit Edgehill Village, and there are other times when we go over to 12 South, but we tend to end up in Hillsboro Village most of all. There are a couple of restaurants we like there, Natural Selections has cats for Berns to pet, and one of the only really real bookstores in Nashville is on that stretch of 21st Street.

Berns hates choosing books. I can’t explain it because I don’t totally understand it. I mean, he reads an entire book just about every single day. I think it has something to do with the executive functioning/frontal lobe skills required to distinguish between choices and narrowing then down to a selection. He has a hard time choosing socks, so a bookstore has to be somewhat overwhelming even if he’d like nothing better than to read something from the shelves. So, when he asks for a book, I’ll go without meals to buy it for him.

W Bruce Cameron’s A Dogs Purpose: A Novel for Humans was such a book. We were at Bookman/Bookwoman in Hillsboro Village digging through the stacks when Bernie asked for this title. I looked it over, not really sure why he wanted it. When I asked him, he couldn’t explain it except to say that he really liked the subtitle — it was funny. So, okay. We bought it.

As is typical, he devoured it in about an afternoon. I tend to wonder if he actually reads the books or just flips pages, but I should know better. I’ve had a book-a-day habit since the 2nd grade. When I would turn in my the summer reading list, I always got a head shake from the librarian.

“Sure,” she thought, “you read 126 books this summer. Yeah right. And I’m the Last Emperor.” Sometimes they would actually say it out loud. Only I had read them and she wasn’t emperor of anything, much less the last one, and, in one of her rare moments of maternal pride, my mother would say, “Ask her anything. She remembers everything about all of those books.” She was right. I did.

So, I know that it’s possible and I’ve quizzed Berns enough to know he remembers what he reads. Getting it out of him is a whole different challenge.

I may have covered this already, but give me a little latitude. I have four kids and a dog and a husband and go to grad school and work and sometimes I repeat myself.

Back to the challenge. We learned through testing and lots of experience that it is just nearly impossible for Bernie to write. He can tell you in incredible detail all sorts of fascinating things, but when you ask him to jot it down you get unintelligible scrawl that, if it were actually words, might be about two and a half sentences worth. Putting him in front of a computer with a keyboard doesn’t help except that you can make out the letters he selected, but can’t really find words unless you are incredibly creative. It isn’t laziness. It isn’t obstinacy. It’s just not something Bernie’s brain is wired to do.

So, how do you get a book report out of a kid who can’t write and who has learned after years of being forced (at times he was actually strapped to the chair — another blog post, but the things *they* do in the name of therapy to kids with disabilities is just appalling) to produce written work that he sucks at it and doesn’t want to do it and can’t do it even if he did want to do it?

He dictates it as you type it into a word processor. You read it back to him. He corrects it orally. You post it to his blog. He tells his family and friends it is there. They respond. He’s thrilled and asks to do it again.

So that’s what we’re doing. Bern’s second review is up. Go take a look. And no worries, Berns avoids spoilers in case your inspired to read something he reviews.

Filed Under: Homework, Reflections Tagged With: A Dog's Purpose, Autism, Boo Talk, books, education, Homeschool, Reading, son, W Bruce Cameron, Wordy Wednesday

What does homeschooling look like?

October 21, 2011 By Gina Lynette Leave a Comment

As I’ve mentioned, I am an accidental homeschooling mom. While it isn’t my first go in the home education rodeo, it is still somewhat a new thing this time around. It takes some time to completely switch gears, rework your schedule and your life, and get some of the “now what!?!?!” out of your head and replace it with “here’s how…”

Boo is a math and spacial genius with a massive vocabulary, a love of reading, and an affinity for all-things electronic. He is not a writer in the sense that it is almost impossible for him to take spoken or thought language and put it into any written form. Keyboards don’t help. It’s as if his brain decided to use those circuits for something else.

So, if he can’t write, how can he be a genius? Let me first say that I don’t use this word lightly. Genius is as genius does, my grandmother would say. Yes, he tests off the charts in every academic and achievement assessment thrown at him. His IQ scores — as little faith as I place in those — are consistently through the roof. So, he has the paper cred. But without any of that, the reality is that we knew this kid was smart before he ever spoke his first word. It’s something just innate. The sad truth is that no one got to experience any of this brilliance as he was being bodily removed from classrooms because boredom turned into unsanctioned creativity.

I wish I could say that the minute I brought him home everything turned into a series of wonderful brain-stimulating activities interspersed with museum visits and park dates. Well, we have done each of those things, but the reality is that I’ve been in a denial-induced shock and only sort of half-committing to this thing. We have and use a core curriculum. I’ve bought a dozen magazine subscriptions that he reads cover to cover the day each issue arrives. I can’t keep him in books –he reads them faster than we get them from the library. He has robotics and electronic circuitry kits, craft supplies, and manipulatives of every type at his reach. He’s learning, but I haven’t really been in it with him.

We’ve been fighting some recently. I want him to do his educational stuff and he wants to do something else. I want him to clean his room and he wants to do something else. I want him to come to dinner and he wants to do something else. I’ve never had this kind of relationship with this child and I don’t believe it’s just a bunch of changing hormones.

The good news is that I think I’m finally coming back around. Yes, me. I think I needed an attitude adjustment.

Boo didn’t choose to be home with me any more than he chose to have autism or be brilliant or be a boy or be at all. He’s a kid who likes what he likes and has a pretty strong neurological excuse to be a pain in the neck. Yet, for the most part he’s a sweet child who really does want to be in relationship with folks — including and especially me — in spite of what his diagnosis might indicate.

So, this morning, after spending the week in a bit of despair about the whole thing, I relented. Instead of doing the “first work then play” mantra I’ve been harping on for weeks, I brought out an unopened block set that was stuffed into a toy bin the day after Christmas. I handed him the pieces and he had challenge #60 completed before I got the cards open. He completed 6 more in the time it took me to get my camera.

Champ the Weather Dog made his appearance and I kept my mouth shut as the two of them worked together rather than telling Boo to leave the dog alone and get back to work. We did hit the online curriculum pretty hard this afternoon, but it wasn’t a fight this time. It was a treat to spend the day with my amazing kiddo.

Even if it took me a while to get with the program.

Filed Under: Blissification, Happy Snaps, Homework, Pointing Forward, Reflections Tagged With: Homeschool

Instant Validation

October 13, 2011 By Gina Lynette 2 Comments

True Confessions Time

I’ve been relapsing pretty hard (or flaring or aggressive resting or in active cycle or whatever happens to be your favorite term for when a chronic illness gets the upper hand for a few days) for about the past week.

I’m a pretty balanced, gentle person around these things. I encourage folks to take really good care of themselves and I mean it. I even do a decent job of taking my own advice. I mean, twenty years in, I’ve kind of gotten the hang of this thing. I know what my limits are and that if I don’t rest, it only gets worse and takes longer to ease up. Then there comes the day, typically about a week to ten days in, when I just want to dooooooo the stuff I want to doooooooo.

Now.

Not think about it. Not stare at it. Not precontemplate it. Not wish for it. Not ask someone else to do it.

I start to get a little disgusted that I have all of these ideas and inspirations and, let’s face it, pressing deadlines and piling emails. I look for opportunities to sneak in some productivity. I push a little harder. I stay up a little (okay, a whole lot) later. I do some Olympic-level mental gymnastics to ignore the pain and fatigue and nagging little voice that says, “This little game you play only makes it worse. Rest!”

So, I’m going through my not-feeling-so-great-but-determined-to-be-productive morning routine. I force myself to get up with Ned Andrew and walk Champ (in the rain). I straighten the kitchen after abandoning it to write a paper last night. I come up to the studio and sit at the desk to make my list of accomplishments for the upcoming day. I check email for urgent requests and stop by Facebook for a quick check on how folks are. I update my status:

I turn my attention back to my desk, straightening pens, organizing papers, lighting a candle or two, and flip my perpetual calendar to October 13.

“Never give up on yourself or feel shame as a result of not fulfilling your objective to serve as a being of inspiration. Every fall that you take is a gift, and every relapse is a glorious opportunity.”

— Dr Wayne Dyer, Inspiration Perpetual Flip Calendar

Whoa.

So, okay. No shame in this relapse thing — whether it be a physical or spiritual or or financial or motivational or emotional or relationship-tional set-back. It’s a pause. As much as I’d like to barrel forward into my next set of accomplishments, maybe I truly need this pause. Maybe I don’t just need a physical break, but a real respite from the pressure and intention and expectation to accomplish stuff for a bit.

I may still make/do/organize/read/plan during this pause. But I’m going to try to be okay with the reality that the one thing I may actually accomplish is taking the next breath.

Filed Under: Pointing Forward, Reflections Tagged With: Healing, Healthy, Lupus, Respite, Rest, wayne dyer