I remember when my sister went into labor with her first child…she was young…
she was scared…of course Mama went to her house for support…and took me with her…that was no surprise…that’s what Mamas do…
No sooner had we gotten there…Mama assessed the situation and determined she had a ways to go…Mamas can tell that kind of thing…now…you might think that Mama would have sat down on the sofa with her and patiently coached her through contractions…but…you’d be wrong…
Mama pulled out the sewing machine…and the new fabric…and curtain making began…and continued for several hours…yielding not only lovely curtains…but an expectant mother about forty-five minutes shy of delivery when we got to the hospital…where everyone was amazed at how calm and collected she was…you have to remember that this was in the days when women were heavily medicated for labor…curtain making wasn’t the norm…
In fact…in the years that I taught Lamaze classes…curtain making didn’t appear in the curriculum…
So…why did Mama do it…and why was it so effective…well…she used it because it was something real…and something that needed to be done…it was something she knew and she could control…but…most importantly…it served as an effective distraction…keeping my sister’s focus off the fear of labor and delivery…and onto something tangible…essentially onto something she wanted…I’m not certain…but the curtains were probably for the nursery…
Bertha…brought this memory to me during our recent Olympic Free Book Toss…AKA…free days on Kindle…it was a particularly frantic morning…Tweeting and Facebooking back and forth with folks from all over the world…watching every hour to see how the rankings on Amazon had changed…glued to the computer…barely leaving to take a potty break…
And…then…it happened…
A new friend…from another country…who was also doing a promotion that day…had Twitter problems…she sent me a message on Facebook…we messaged back and forth for over an hour…talking not only about our books and the promotions…but about families…and just normal things…and a funny thing happened…we started laughing…or at least I did…and…the longer we chatted…the lower my anxiety level became…and I could tell hers was lessening as well…about that time…her husband came home…her Twitter straightened out…I had lunch…away from the computer…and although I continued to be at the computer the rest of the next two days…the anxiety of the morning never returned…
Bertha…said it was the same thing as the curtain making…and I can see that it was…the conversation took my attention away from the anxiety regarding the book promotion…and…it shifted my focus to something that I enjoyed…getting to know someone…making a connection…
So…how did the book promotion go…I’m extremely pleased with the results…you can read about them…here…if you’d like…
Anyway…back to Mama…her technique of…distract and redirect…worked like a charm for my sister…but…for some reason that I’ve never thought about until today…I didn’t call her until I my first baby was actually born…maybe it was because labor started in the middle of the night and she was a few hours away…and…I didn’t want her to drive it in the middle of the night…maybe it was because the baby came before daylight…or maybe…I just didn’t have any need for curtains…
Naww…that wasn’t it…surely…
Jane
