It is a daunting project to move a household. It can feel even more complicated when many containers of precious La Leche League items are also involved. Moving my three sons, my husband, and myself from Nova Scotia to Pennsylvania was one thing. Moving La Leche League was another.

I needed to set up my office immediately so I could begin work on the review draft for a Connections issue. There was a fax machine to hook up. A computer to assemble. A typewriter to get repaired. Boxes of office supplies to organize and arrange. In between all these jobs, of course, dinners had to be cooked, laundry washed, and a new community begged to be explored. There were also new Leaders and new Groups to meet.

Soon after the moving men left, I called North Hills La Leche League here in Pittsburgh and was immediately invited to the Chapter’s World Walk the next weekend. We walked with many families through North Park and were invited to enjoy the dishes from a varied and delicious potluck, even though I wasn’t able to provide anything from my disorganized kitchen. My co-Leaders were happy to have me and curious as to which Group in our Chapter I’d choose to be affiliated with.

The following week, I drove to a
Series Meeting of the Group clsest to my home, joining mothers, babies, and toddlers for a fresh but timeless discussion of the techniques, joys, and challenges of the womanly art of brestfeeding. The warm welcome (and maybe Lisa and Sarah’s pleading looks!) convinced me to affiliate with their thriving, enthusiastic Group. I’m home again in La Leche League.

I’ve found places for my stapler, tape dispenser, and most of my files; a corner for the fax machine; wall space for my calendars and crib quilts; and shelf space for my pens, templates, and handbooks. I’m still working on putting up my mother-and-baby prints. It seems to take up to a year to find a place for everything. But now at least I seem to have found another new place for me.

Many of us agonize over finding just the right topic or expanding an idea into an article for the Area Leaders’ Letter (ALL), a memo, Connections, or another La Leche League publication. Waiting and hoping for inspiration can be illusive and sporadic at best. However, he future article you’re looking for may be in something you’ve already written.

With expansion and development, the following sources might be the starting point for that article you’re trying to write.

1. Your letters of correspondence to other Leaders may contain nuggets that can be developed into an article. Be sure to protect the privacy of your letters’ recipients by changing or deleting details and making situations generic.

2. An evaluation form you filled in (for a meeting, workshop, conference, etc.) may have a discussion of a conflict, challenge, or situation that could be expanded into a fuller exploration of a topic. Again, you will need to edit for privacy.

3. A handout you prepared for a Chapter Meeting or District Workshop can be fleshed out into an article.

4. The notes for a talk you presented at a meeting, workshop, or conference could be an outline for your writing.

5. A paragraph or two from another article you’ve written may suggest a more in-depth treatment. Articles you’ve already written may contain several ideas for new ones.

You can mine your own writing for more subject matter in future articles. With discretion and creativity, your own words may be just the inspiration you were looking for.

“She was like clear blue skies in the heaviest fog . . .”
—E. Annie Proulx, praising her editor in the acknowledgments from her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Shipping News

Nova Scotia is famous for its fog. Like many coastal areas in Atlantic Canada, as warmer air spreads over the ocean and the frigid landscape, clouds of wet, gray mist settle along the shore. From my kitchen this time of year I can see Birches Park swathed in ghostlike veils, making the hill on Portland Street disappear and the regal copses of birch trees fade into last year’s summer memory.

Where did all the familiar landmarks go? Is that a shrub or a dog? Is that a man or a lamppost? Fog has a way of quieting and disorienting. It’s lovely in a landscape. It has no business in writing.

Clarity is important in La Leche League publications. Leaders don’t have the time to decipher the publications they read for the information and ideas they need. Extra verbiage, long anecdotes, and too many examples can make the message more difficult.

An article might be “foggy” if you need to read and reread the same passage several times to understand what it’s saying. I recognize fog in my own writing when I have trouble connecting the points I’m trying to make. Paring words, deleting repetitive sentence, condensing several sentences or paragraphs into one, and rearranging introductions and conclusions can all burn off the verbal mist.

Editing for clarity clears away the fog. The original intent, the regional flavor, and the author’s voice are left intact. When the fog lifts around here, you see what was really there all along. The hill on Portland Street, the birch trees, and the little pine tree I planted are still there. Each article becomes a part of LLL literature that will be read by Leaders we may never meet far into the future. Our messages to them need to be clear.

An index is a useful tool for locating material that has been written about a particular subject. But have you considered using an index to generate an idea for a new article? The August 1995 Connections index compiled by Lynne Coates covers Issues #39–#59. As you look through the subjects and issue numbers, the following considerations might help spark a topic for your own article.

1. Does a subject area have only a few articles indexed? “Brainstorming,” for instance, only has one article listed (in issue #48). You might have a new or different perspective on the topic or write something with a fresh approach.

2. Is a topic only covered in older issues? “Leadership style” was covered in issues #39 and #41, both in 1990. Perhaps a fresh treatment or a new and different approach would be appropriate.

3. Has a particular aspect of a topic never had an article? The subject “Index” has only one article listed, which was about a tool for District Advisors. There’s no article, until now, about using an index as an article spark!

4. Is there a topic you’re interested in that isn’t represented in the index? Introductions to reprinted articles are something many editors request from Area Administrators who submit “lifted” articles to an Area Leaders’ Letter; memo, or other publication. Yet I don’t see that subject heading in the August 1995 Connections index. Is it time to jump to the keyboard?

5. Use several indexes to generate ideas. The Connections index is only one of the indexes available. There are the year-end indexes in LEAVEN and NEW BEGINNINGS, cumulative indexes for The Baobab Tree and ALL-Spice [old departmental memos], an annual index for LAD Lifeline, indexes at the back of the BREASTFEEDING ANSWER BOOK and THE WOMANLY ART OF BREASTFEEDING, and an older Connections index covering Issues #1`–#47, compiled in July 1993.

Pick up an index and look through the topics. I guarantee that a subject, or a new aspect of a subject, will jump out at you, crying for a new look, a new point of view, or a more current treatment. Your editor is looking forward to receiving your article in the mail.

Put the word out. As soon as you know the meeting dates, you can tell people about your need for acts through publications, word of mouth, and personal contacts. Your best response may come from people who have seen someone perform or have performed themselves at other LLL functions. Many Leaders are very modest about their other talents and may need a nudge from their friends.

Arrange for a Mistress of Ceremonies. This might be someone who is not performing herself and who can fill in gaps with patter, be gracious, thank each act as she/they exit the stage, and put audience and performers at ease through inevitable snafus and delays. The talent show coordinator could perform this function, although she may feel her time and energy would be better spent behind the scenes.

Encourage diversity. Skits, musical performances, and poetry readings might be augmented by karate demonstrations, baton twirling, and magic acts. Let Leaders be creative. Encourage them to remember all the things they can do.

Trust your cast. I never auditioned anyone for these shows, over the phone or otherwise. I always trusted that if someone wanted to be in the talent show, she was talented enough to be in the talent show.

Assure performers they can reprise old material. A singer doesn’t have to learn new songs for your show. She can do a song she’s done a hundred times on other occasions. If a group of women did a great skit at a workshop or conference, they might like to reprise it at your show. These acts will be new and fresh to this show. And, if you choose to perform yourself, you might use old, reliable material to save your nerves for focusing on the other actors and musicians.

Set time limits. You might start out by assigning an individual performer five minutes and a group act ten minutes. Despite the tightest controls, each act will take more time than you expected for the set up and take down of music stands and props, and for the audience’s reactions.

Keep in contact with performers and meeting organizers. I used e-mail almost exclusively for contacting actors and musicians in the TEAM 2000 show. I periodically contacted the Division Director and Department Coordinators to let them know how our program was filling out. I also stayed in touch with local (to the talent show venue) Leaders to help with props and CD players.

Keep venue requirements simple. In our 1998 show, I asked for a tuned piano. The piano was tuned, but there was no piano bench! I’ll never forget watching pianist Nancy Spahr rehearse on three stacked plastic chairs with singer Jeannette Wachtel. In the 2000 show, I decided to forego the extra of renting a piano (and we lost some acts because of it). Upon arrival at Lindsay Auditorium, however, we found a piano on the stage anyway. You never quite know what situation you’ll find when you do long distance coordinating!

Two detachable microphones on stands worked well for both shows. At the 1998 show, we used a local Leader’s portable CD player for some musical numbers. At the 2000 show, we were offered the auditorium sound system but were frustrated with complications of its operation.

The 1998 show was performed on carpeted risers in a banquet room in front of people at dining tables. The 2000 show was performed on a wooden stage in a university lecture auditorium in front of an audience seated in rows of desk seats.

Prepare a program. I typed up a rough draft of the program immediately and kept in constant contact with all the performers. Musicians and actors often have preferences for what position in the program they hold. Accommodate all requests as best you can.

Prepare a performers’ biography section. Audience members love to read about the women brave enough to get up on stage. Include details about LLL positions held, children, hobbies, something unique about where they live, etc. For group acts, you might total the number of participants’ children, years nursing, and years in LLL. Keep a careful record of performers’ addresses—postal and electronic—for thank-you notes later.

Expect last-minute acts and program revisions. Set a deadline for information and additions to your written program and performers’ biography section. However, some Leaders may now know whether they can even participating in the meeting—let along the talent show—until just weeks before.

Allow several days for printing your program booklet. This document will be a special souvenir for all show participants and attendees. Make extras for performers who may want more copies to share.

Take care of the performers. Performers at these shows may be rusty at their craft. Motherhood often doesn’t allow for lots of rehearsal time. Be reassuring: all participants are nervous, but an LLL audience is enthusiastic and very forgiving. If cast members are too nervous to eat, you might be able to make arrangements with the kitchen staff to save their dinners till after the show.

Thank the cast. These performers were willing to participate in an extra activity at an LLL function. Seek them out throughout the rest of the meeting for personal thank-yous and then send notes to everyone once you’ve returned home. Bravo!

Wouldn’t it be great if you could show everyone at an event who was attending and where they’d come from? Photo maps create a positive impression and a feeling of togetherness that warm feeling that sometimes only photographs can elicit. You could expand your photo map to include families, co-Leaders, Group, and departments. Your map could be of a county, a state, several states, a Division, a country, the world! Visualize the event in a concrete way: consider creating a photo map. During the TEAM 2000 gathering at Denver University, we were able to do just that!

Ingredients:

• Large map of the geographic area that will include all attendees (city, county, District, Region, Area, United States, world)
• “I Zone” Polaroid camera (about $25–$50)
• Rolls of “I Zone” film (1” high x 5” long self-stick strips). Calculate at least one exposure for each attendee plus about 5–10 extras for experiments and goofs.
• Or perhaps disposable photos attendees bring from home
• Fine-point permanent marker (like a Sharpie)
• Cork board or other wall surface to pin or tape up map. You might also reserve an easel from the facility.
• Push pins, masking tape, scissors
• Table or counter for writing and letting photos dry
• Poster tube for map transport and storage
• Stand-up mirror and plastic combs with event name and date as give-aways for those wanting to spiff up before their photo is taken

Setting up. Attach your map to a wall, side of a vending machine, etc., near registration area in a central location with high traffic. Arrange pens, film rolls, and scissors.

Taking the pictures. Event planners need to schedule the photographers so that they can take pictures of event workers as soon as possible. They will be difficult to catch once attendees arrive. If workers and other attendees know ahead of time, they could also bring photos of themselves that don’t need to be returned.

Have registrars steer attendees to your photo table. A list of attendees would also be helpful to check off names as you do the photos. Even when attendees protested that they were hot and tired, it was our experience that catching them right after registration worked better than trying to reach them later. Patience, a sense of humor, matching name with faces, and looking at other people’s photos helps put everyone at ease.

Standing on a chair or riser can improve a head shot. Try to position camera person above the person to be photographed, thus emphasizing the eyes and not the chin and neck. Photograph at a distance of no more than three to four feet, but continue to assess your final photos, adjusting your camera positioning accordingly.

Positioning photos. Remove the film strip and lay it on a flat surface, letting it dry for five minutes. Indicate the person’s map location (such as “SE corner Arizona”) on the side of the film strip and then add a small dot on the map itself to position it later. When the photo is dry, peel off he backing, cut out the head shot to a desired size, and attach it to the map.

If many conference goers come from one location, you might position that cluster of photos in an area with no attendees (such as a lake or ocean) and indicate the actual area with an arrow.

Viewing the geography of your Region, Area, Division, or Group in this way is fascinating. You can see how far someone has traveled to your event. And you can get a strong impression of how many people participated. Also, as you see clusters of Leaders in certain parts of the state or Division, you might also see voids in certain regions. The visual impact of noticing a certain pocket of the state where there is no LLL representation can be powerful.

Later photo opportunities during the event. Take the map to other event gatherings and mealtimes to look for photo opportunities for latecomers and busy conference workers. We heard a rumor that even an Area Event Coordinator will sometimes sit down and eat.

After the event. Arrange for someone to be in charge of storage of the map. She can then bring the map to other gatherings. For instance, attendees at an Area gathering or International Conference might have fun looking at photos from their last Area Conference. You can also have a copy shop reduce the map as a souvenir of the event, as an item in a drawing, or for reproduction in an ALL of other publication (See “Photo Map of TEAM 2000 Attendees,” Connections #92, November/December 2000.)

When a Leader relocates, La Leche League often provides welcome continuity in the face of moving upheaval. Not all Leaders are ready to jump into local LLL work immediately upon arrival, however. The following thoughts and experiences from move-in Leaders may help all Leaders be sensitive to the needs and feelings of women who have recently arrived in a new community.

Experienced movers have often characterized three stages of moving: action, reaction, and integration. This idea is adapted from “After the Move: Adjustment Comes in Stages” from the February 6, 1984, issue of The Air Force Times Magazine. Each Leader and each member of her family may go through these stages differently, at different time, and spend different lengths of time in each stage.. There may also be some regressing into earlier stages from time to time.

The Action Stage

Characterized by action, distraction, decision, making, and organizing, this stage covers the time when a move is first considered to several months or longer after moving in.

Immediately after a move is planned, a Leader may start drifting away from the geographical and psychological center of her old home to the center of her new world. She is distracted by the continuing responsibilities of her old home as well as the responsibilities of arranging a home in a new place.

A Leader may decide to pull back to basic Leader responsibilities or perhaps put LLL on hold during this active stage of moving. She can be distracted by the swirl of emotions involved in selling and buying a house; explaining things to her relatives, neighbors, and children; planning good-byes; and arranging for haircuts, dental and doctor visits, and other appointments one last time before the move.

I remember being exhausted in the last weeks before our move from Texas to Alaska, as people wanted to host special parties and last luncheons for me. I appreciated all the gestures and cakes, but sometimes I just wanted to scream from the sheer weight of all the decisions, negotiations, and struggling to appear gracious. –Kathy

Almost overnight, I went from being the Listed Leader of a thriving Group to taking a temporary leave of absence from all basic Leader responsibilities and Group and Area work. Emotionally, it was surprisingly easy to let go of these things because I knew they would go on without me. –Lisa

The moving Leader might like to notify her new Area and local Groups of her impending arrival. This notification can provide an opportunity for the incoming Leader to feel LLL’s welcome in her new location. By contacting the Area Coordinator of Leaders ahead of time, a Leader might be able to get copies of the Area Leaders’ Letter, conference information, and other news that will help her get settled into her new home and make decisions about LLL involvement.

I contacted Sue Zuk (then Coordinator of Leader Accreditation) even before we decided to move. My husband had a job interview in a different town and I wanted to know if there was an LLL Group there. By the time we moved to Erie, Pennsylvania, I had been corresponding with Sue for several months. I had been on the Area Council in Missouri for five years, so I immediately was interested in being an ACLA. That was a good decision for me, as it was several months before I was needed to do much for the Erie Group. –Amy

I called the local Galveston, Texas, Leader from our hotel room right after moving from Ohio. It was a dream-come-true for Barb, since she’d been a lone Leader for many years. Then, six years later from my kitchen in Anchorage, Alaska, I called a local Leader in Nova Scotia, Canada—five time zones away0-to tell her I’d be arriving in a few weeks. She drove up on the day the moving arrived with lunch and hugs. –Kathy

The Reaction Stage

This stage is characterized by questioning the decision to move; feeling overwhelmed, irritable, depressed; and alternately romanticizing and criticizing the old home, neighbors, and LLL Group. A Leader may feel cautious about approaching local Leaders, concerned that she will become involved in LLL work too deeply and too quickly. This stage may last several months for some women, or much longer for others, perhaps depending on the distance traveled and the difference in culture experienced.

Our move to St. Joseph, Missouri, was complicated by the fact that the house we had originally planned to move into was not available. Luckily, we found another house to rent, but all of our boxes were labeled for the first house. It took two weeks to find all my pots and pans. Additionally, the local LLL Group had been founded by three out-of-town Leaders, so I quickly found myself shouldering a heavy volume of phone helping calls since I was the only Leader with a local number. –Amy

During an ice storm our first winter in Ohio, I remember being miserable as I looked out at our ice-glazed trees, my crying baby, the messy house, all the while dreading a necessary call to our landlord about the septic tank that had backed up into the basement. I said, “Why did Tom have to make us move here?” –Kathy

A move-in Leader may want to contact other local Leaders first and not attend Series Meetings for a while. Or she may want to attend meetings at first but not lead. A Chapter Meeting or District Workshop, where contact is limited to Leaders and Leader Applicants, may be a way to gradually enter her new LLL world.

A Leader may have plans to do things very differently in her new location because of past experiences. She may react poorly to pressure to decide which Group she’d like to work with; she may not be oriented enough to the geography of the area to recognize whether or not a Group is even near her new home. Some Leaders choose to move into a new town very quietly, not even calling local Leaders until they feel more settled and confident.

I knew I wouldn’t have the emotional energy to get involved with a local LLL Group right away, but I wanted the continuity that LLL could provide during my relocation to Texas. I chose to continue my Division work as a way of maintaining my connection to LLL. I also decided to attend Chapter Meetings as a way of getting to know local Leaders without having to commit to local activities. –Lisa

When we moved to Nome, Alaska, there was no local Group. I offered to edit the Area Leaders’ Letter, but chose not to start a Group even though there was a great need. I was feeling very protective of my family and my time. –Kathy

The Integration Stage

This stage is characterized by a feeling of being settled; appreciation for local stores, attractions, and geography; feeling more comfortable with the decision to move; and the emotional response that “this is home.” A Leader may not feel confident to start leading with a local Group or try an Area Council commitment.

In this stage, a move-in Leader gains the feeling of being centered in her new town. She may sometimes regress into feeling alienated and emotional at time, but mostly this stage is a time of enjoyment and the sense of looking ahead instead of regretting former decisions. She may be ready to commit to one certain Group now. She may even feel as if her household is organized enough to accept the extra responsibilities (and the file boxes) of an Area, Division, or Affiliate position.

I felt settled in Pittsburgh when I went to a local annual herb sale and chatted with a woman about some local restaurants, all of which I had been to. The contrast with the disoriented women I had been two years before at that same sale was incredible! –Kathy

We hope these thoughts will help you with accepting, understanding, and welcoming the move-in Leader who has entered your LLL life, or with anticipating and planning a move yourself.

There is a wealth of creativity, affirmation, and information in past issues of Connections. Older articles (especially those written several years ago) may warrant another look in future issues. When starting to write for LLL publications yourself, orienting an administrator to her job (which may include writing for the ALL, departmental memos, and/or Connections), or introducing a writer to LLL editing and review, you might consider the advantages of using older articles as a starting point.

1. Providing a short introduction to a reprinted article may be an easy way to being an LLL writing career. If you wish to reprint something from Connections or another LLL source in an ALL, an introduction describing why you chose the article is a sure way to see your name in print.

2. Adapting or updating an article will generally require less editing than original writing, and will attune a new writer to the current LLLI Stylesheet and LLL journalistic guidelines. The adaptor/writer will become aware of LLL terminology, capitalization, titles, spellings, and historical changes in LLL wording (such as changing “the League” to “La Leche League” or “LLL”), policies, and procedures.

3. Excerpting or quoting portions of articles (such as compiling a list of suggestions for time management from several articles) may help a new writer become more familiar with Connections as a resource. Quoted paragraphs or sections from several articles on the same topic (such as listening skills, goal setting, or conflict resolution) might be combined into one longer, more comprehensive article.

Consider suggesting introducing, adapting, excerpting, and using older articles as resources to administrators you support in orientation or to writers reluctant to start out with original writing. These beginning steps may help give them (and you!) the confidence to write regularly for La Leche League.

I think on my feet, while I wash up a cup, tidy a drawer, drink a cup of tea, but my mind is not on these activities. I find myself in the chair by the machine. I write a sentence . . . will it stand? But never mind, look at it later, just get on with it, get the flow started. And so it goes on. I walk and I prowl, my hands busy with this and that. You’d think I was a paragon of concern for housekeeping if you judged by what you saw.
—Doris Lessing, from her memoir The Roads of London

Where do good ideas come from? Ideas for many writers come to them when they’re far away from the legal pad, the typewriter, or computer. While walking, driving, or, as Ms. Lessing describes, cleaning house, sometimes the ideas flow.

I found the answer [to how and what to paint[ when I joined a school of painters in Paris after [World War I] who called themselves neomeditationists . . . They believed an artist had to wait for inspiration, very quietly, and they did most of their waiting at the Café du Dôme or the Rotonde with brandy. It was then that I realized that all the really good ideas I’d ever had came to me while I was milking a cow. So I went back to Iowa.
—Grant Wood

Once you know what stimulates your creativity, your memory of things important, it may become your standard writing practice. When you need an article idea, you go do that activity. Is it puttering in the kitchen, gardening, exercising, or nursing your baby?

For me, it has often been during my daily walk that I find ideas. My forays around the suburban neighborhoods, malls, and small-town streets of my former residences have stimulated many of my own Connections articles. My brisk steps on the cemetery pathways near my present home give me titles and articles ideas now. When I’m stuck in the middle of writing, the solitude, quiet, and rhythm of my legs often seem to break up the mental logjams.

Whether your good ideas come from walking, cleaning, or milking a cow, they’re always welcome as submissions in Connections.

As many of you may know, in addition to editing this publication I also produce the “Slice of LLLife” cartoons for LEAVEN and create other pieces of artwork for LLL. You might imagine that I have a large private studio at home with skylights and a locking door, a professional drafting table, art store delivery service, and baskets of magnificent ferns hanging from hand-forged hooks. Wouldn’t that be nice!

The reality is that my cartoons usually start out as very rough sketches on lined tablets balanced on my knee while I sit in the waiting room at my son’s guitar lessons. Many of the other small “spot” illustrations you see in Connections begin on index cards I keep along with a mechanical pencil in a plastic bag in my purse. I often work on them against my van’s steering wheel as I sit and wait during soccer practice or chess club.

My final inked drawings are done at night (while my sons have their turns on our computer) with the help of a small light table on my dinner table. During the day I often just hold up sketches to be traced against the sliding glass door.

The spot illustrations get inked when the dinner table is cleared. I later erase the pencil marks and clean up the lines with ink and white paint. I might then assemble some of the cropped sketches na sheet of paper and take them to the copy shop where I’ll make some reductions to give me—and other LLL “clients”—some size choices.

Like most of you, I don’t have a private office or permanent working quarters. I share space and time with my sons’ activities and computer projects, getting much of the work done during family life’s in-between times. I don’t really want, or seem to need, a big studio with ferns to do the real art of penciling and inking, producing connections that go beyond words.