[00:00:00] Hi, I'm Christina and being an uplifter to me means being hopeful, supportive and a beacon of light for myself and for those [00:00:15] around me.
Nomination: My friend Eliza ticks every uplifter box and more. Always thinking of others with generosity and creativity, while solving important problems for people who are so often overlooked, Eliza embodies the [00:00:30] Uplifter.
And I'm so lucky to know her. And I'm so happy to share her with you.
Aransas: Welcome to the Uplifters podcast. You just heard my wonderful friend, Sabrina LeBlanc, introducing her friend, Eliza Factor. [00:00:45] And so for those of you who are new to our show, all of our guests are nominated by former guests and it allows us to create this extraordinary chain of uplifting wisdom.
So Eliza, tell us a little about
Eliza: you. I [00:01:15] guess my work as a uplifter started when my first child was born back in 2003 I Had the chicken pox when I was pregnant And it was a really rough patch for me [00:01:30] and for Felix, who was in my womb, but I emerged really pretty much the way I was before.
And Felix lost a lot of the white matter in his brain. And so when he was born, he was really floppy. And we didn't really know what was [00:01:45] wrong because, you know, some kids survived the chicken pox in the womb just fine. Thank God. Over time it emerged that he was going to be significantly disabled for life.
And what that means in his case is he can't move [00:02:00] independently. He can't walk or talk. I mean, he makes wonderful sounds, all kinds of sounds. He's very, very expressive, but he doesn't use language the way that most of us do. And he, you know, he can move to say [00:02:15] dangle, uh, Jump rope and watch the way the rope moves and maybe whap his sister with it.
Definitely can move to steal your ice cream cone, but he can't like hold a pen. So like [00:02:30] just the way that the world is organized for most of us is completely, uh, you know, like completely a foreign country for someone like Felix. And so when you're close to someone, Like that you start to see how strange the world that you live [00:02:45] in is, and how narrow most of our structures are.
Both our thinking structures and our physical structures from moving and, and, and these things that we don't even recognize until, you know, until someone like Felix comes [00:03:00] along, like how limited our perceptions can be. We're born with many more perceptions than we cultivate. And so like being with somebody who doesn't use language but is, has a very clear [00:03:15] personality and intelligence in our life, you really cultivate reading body language and quasi telepathy and all this kind of stuff that our culture doesn't focus on.
We focus so much on words and what's quantified. [00:03:30] So Felix kind of brought a lot of. My childhood gifts back that stuff had been kind of, you know, batted out of you through school and degrees and all that stuff. So that's kind of the [00:03:45] gifts that he brings to me and to others. But it's also very alienating and lonely and painful.
And just living in the city with Felix and then having two younger kids who fit in to our [00:04:00] world easily made me realize with the younger kids that usually when you have a child, you're swept into community. You just meet all the other parents. Someone's like, oh, put them on a nap schedule. You're all on the same page.
But [00:04:15] when you have a child like Felix, the community just isn't there. There's therapists who are wonderful, and doctors, but it's hard to find other parents. So anyway, when the younger kids were born and, and then I was involved in this wonderful community around them, I was like, oh, I wanna figure out how to do this for other families that only have kids with disabilities or whatever. And also, I just wanted to [00:04:45] meet other parents who were dealing with more my situation.
And so I started Extreme Kids and Crew, for children with disabilities, but it wasn't drop off. the whole family was welcome. I realized that parents focus so much on their kid and they, They don't focus on themselves, can feel like, I don't need to go to mama yoga, [00:05:15] but I do need to get my child to this art class.
And so like, if I could make the child's art class for the whole family and get the parents also making art and just like get the parents talking to each other, then they're weaving this support group that's happening [00:05:30] organically. Now Extreme Kids and Crew is 13 years old and I'm not involved in it anymore. I stepped off the board because Felix is getting, he just turned 21, so he needs a place to work. [00:06:15] 70 to 80 percent of adults with disabilities are unemployed. And, you know, wait lists to get into decent day head programs, which, you know, just like nice community programs can be 10 years.
There's so little [00:06:30] resources put into including adults with disabilities in the workplace and just the life of the community. And so anyway, I, I was like, well, I guess the next thing to do is a work [00:06:45] program, community program for adults. And since Felix loves to be outside, it had to be a farm. And then my mom's also a organic farmer from California.
So farms are a part of our life. So we [00:07:00] started Lonely Worm Farm, which is in the Hudson Valley, in Hyde Park. We now have like a three acre field that's been beautifully designed to grow into a food forest. If [00:07:15] anybody's interested in permaculture, that's a permaculture term, but it's an ecological garden that will grow into a forest that will be filled with fruit trees and nut trees and berries and herbs.
[00:07:30] And through it winds this wheelchair path. And the wheelchair path is lined with berries so that you can harvest blackberries and raspberries from your wheelchair. And then on the other side are these waist high planters [00:07:45] that our adult volunteers helped make. Um, and so they can also harvest vegetables and flowers and stuff growing in the planters.
Aransas: How incredible. Wow. What a journey. And I hear in that, this. [00:08:15] Openness to the responsibility to create what's missing in your life.
Oh, yeah. And I think so much of life, we can step back, we can say, well, that doesn't exist and feel resigned and [00:08:30] a little bit victimized by the world maybe. And what I hear in your story is, I'm going to go create what's missing so that it serves my child and the other children like him. that takes a tremendous amount of courage and [00:08:45] initiative.
Because in each of these instances, if I understand correctly, you were doing things that you didn't technically have any business doing. You had no background or experience in these arenas. And so to courageously walk up and say, I'm going to make this [00:09:00] thing based principally on my understanding of my child and our needs, I think is extraordinarily important.
Bold and brave.
Eliza: Thank you. I mean, it doesn't feel that way, [00:09:15] you know. Mmm. I think, I mean, I think it's a lot easier for me than many people because I'm an artist, so making things is just what you do. And you never know, like, it's, you're always on the cliff as an artist. You're always just like, I [00:09:30] have this feeling, I'm gonna follow it.
I don't know where it's gonna take me, but I have to do it. I can't follow a map. I need to, so I'm just following myself. And Felix is my guide.
Aransas: Yeah, what a beautiful perspective on [00:09:45] that too. And I think this notion of being, having the trust, you will be able to make the next right decision as you go.
Because I think a lot of us get stopped by needing a map, needing a clear [00:10:00] set of directions and find ourselves unable to do anything. And so I think to Eliza it means to tap into the trust, to tap into the faith that you will find [00:10:15] the directions as you build the map.
Eliza: Yeah, you really will. It's just being receptive and listening and not You know, you have a, you get an idea, you take a bath, maybe talk to some people, [00:10:30] it still seems like a good idea a week later, like, you don't have to jump on every idea that pops into your head, but they have different resonance, and, you know, when you get one of those ideas, it's like, ding, you listen to it and you respect it, because it was in some ways [00:10:45] I guess that given to you, you know, it's not really yours.
And then, you know, you're on the right path, but the people that show up to help you, like you can't do it alone. And so, and so you kind of expose yourself and [00:11:00] you'll people go all kinds of responses. But if you get that kind of juicy connection with somebody else, who's like, yes. And then they're going to tell you, Oh, go talk to this person.
Like Sabrina's like, Oh, don't go talk to her. You know, like you, you're weaving this kind of invisible social [00:11:15] net that makes things possible. And I think I'm lucky in many ways. Cause I really, cause I like to be alone to make my art. I don't want to always be like a leader. Or like, I don't want to be a manager.
Like. [00:11:30] I can do that, but it's not something I enjoy doing. So I'm always trying to dump stuff on other people. I'm like, you look like you could do this. But yeah. So I think, I think that that kind of feeling of needing to control or wanting to be the person in [00:11:45] charge can be exhausting and can hamstring a lot of these kinds of projects.
Aransas: I think that's what hamstrings the best leaders even, or many of the, uh, Most influential or even inspiring [00:12:00] people is a sense of responsibility. They need to manage everything. And so as I'm listening to you, I am hearing a repeatable process that truly any of us, no matter [00:12:15] how bold we may feel or not, have access to, which is to listen to the vision, to sit with that and feel it out individually, and then, as you said, to expose the vision.
To, um, [00:12:30] sense tested with others to see what's played back to you, what begins to expand from that, and then to have the trust to share the vision and to let others [00:12:45] co lead and co create with you. And I think so often we create from a place of fear and that's really limiting because we're like, Oh, I've got to protect the baby.
Eliza: Yeah. Yeah.
Aransas: And we hold it so tight that we [00:13:00] kind of strangle it. But I actually, I think I hear in your story this willingness to share the baby.
Eliza: Yeah. So you're such a good listener. That's wonderful. I think that it's definitely where my [00:13:15] process and I definitely like the sharing the baby. I'm married to a great husband, father type.
I mean, we totally have shared raising our kids. And it's been wonderful. Yeah. And [00:13:30] also the more people raising the baby, the more time you have to actually have some time to yourself, which is so important.
Aransas: So let's talk about that because we strangle our own energy through exhaustion and that desire to do more, to [00:13:45] get it all done, to be everything How did you give yourself permission to take care of yourself?
Eliza:, I [00:14:00] think what happens for me, like I need to move. Like I just, my body just needs to move. Like if I didn't be a terrible person to be around. So it's like, it's wasn't really so much permission.
I struggle with this feeling of self indulgence [00:14:15] sometimes when I'm doing stuff that's like meditating. It's not really self indulgent. I mean, you're just as precious as your children. Right. You gotta love yourself like you love your kids.
Aransas: And I think if I get to [00:14:30] be really old and I'm looking back on this, what am I going to say?
Like, are you going to be like, don't have a glass of wine? And I don't know, do your taxes, but you're like, you're not going to be giving yourself. You're like, you a wonderful, you lived, you enjoyed your life, your [00:14:45] precious life. I mean, when you're thinking like it's incredible that we're alive, you know, it's incredible.
This earth is incredible.
Aransas: Yeah. One of the things that really strikes me about your story and a bit of [00:15:00] maybe bitter poetry in it is that you are a person who is wired for language. You are a writer and you have a child who spoke a different [00:15:15] language.
Eliza: Yeah.
Aransas: What was that journey like learning your son's language?
Eliza: It was so interesting. It was so painful in the beginning because when it became clear that he wasn't going to be able to [00:15:30] navigate the world with his body very much. Both Jason and I are pretty intellectual people, so we're like, oh, that sucks, but there's this huge universe of knowledge and the mind and astronomy.
Everyone's like, Stephen Hawking, you [00:15:45] know, there's all of this kind of like, you can, you can connect through ideas and language and music and art. I mean, there's just many ways of connecting, right? So that's where our minds went immediately to the pleasure that books have given us and the real sense of freedom [00:16:00] that writing often gives me.
As time went on, it was became clear that that just wasn't Felix's Avenue. And I think before then, I often fell in love with people after a great conversation. And I thought before Felix came along, [00:16:15] it was the ideas and the words that we were batting back and forth that made me love them. And I realized with Felix.
That was a misperception. It was being with these people that their energy or whatever it is, made [00:16:30] me feel comfortable. And so then because I was comfortable, I could speak and we could just have fun. And so like the words are almost icing on the cake. They're not as important as you think they are. And also because of, once [00:16:45] I figured that out, which was just purely Felix, I started understanding how misleading words are in conversation.
You know, I just like see like, you know, the kind of the politics around, uh, PTA stuff. I'd be watching [00:17:00] two adults converse with each other and realizing one person is saying this with words, but she doesn't mean it at all, and the other person thinks she does. And it's just so obvious, you know, the anger that [00:17:15] arises when you're only listening to the specific words.
And even if you hear the words, even if they're written down, everybody kind of translates words differently. So they mean different things to different people. So they cause so much friction, and they [00:17:30] sometimes feel like they're more bother than they're worth. So yeah, so he really opened my mind to how much of communication is nonverbal.
And that's actually strangely helpful for my writing, because I've been able to focus more on the body, more on the [00:17:45] felt sensation of being alive using words. There was this moment, I studied his body language so much, it was kind of, I could kind of feel him within me. But I think lots of parents of young babies have that, you know, the baby, you're [00:18:00] like, Oh, the baby's hungry.
You can feel hunger. And it's like the baby isn't saying anything, but you can see it in their skin, their eyes, because you know, Felix, this practice kept expanding with Felix. I remember I was walking in the park once and I was watching a [00:18:15] squirrel and it was leaping from branch to branch. And I could feel my core muscles.
contract in the way the squirrels, like for a moment I was like, Oh, I could feel that leap. It was, it felt so good. It was [00:18:30] amazing. So of course, yeah. And then my mind was like, Oh, you know, there are all these, you know, practices in different cultures where people say they can feel flying and stuff like that.
You know, like they can communicate with animals. I was like, Oh, well, that doesn't seem so strange. When you really, really just kind [00:18:45] of get out of words. Yeah,
Aransas: I think the best word I have for it in this moment is presence.
Eliza: Yeah.
Aransas: As I was listening to you talk about learning Felix's methods of communication, it [00:19:00] required a significant amount of presence.
Oh,
Eliza: yeah.
Aransas: And I think that comes up a lot amongst caregivers. This, especially with folks who are nonverbal, there is this sense of, Oh, we [00:19:15] have to slow way down. And life is so fast and efficient and we're, we receive so many messages to speed up. [00:19:30] And I think what I take from these stories as a reminder for myself anyway, is what we can see when we really slow down.
I see so much more when I take a walk than when I take a run, but I see so much more when I [00:19:45] run than when I'm in a car flying by. And so it's like trying to sort of step down and allow ourselves to see more and to feel more.
Eliza: It's true. It's very, that presence is such a, it's like when you're looking, when you're [00:20:00] hiring people or trying to, you know, get together a team to help someone like Felix, I recognized early on.
Like. People's degrees or education wasn't very useful in knowing whether they'd be good at it because it's really is the degree of presence that you bring [00:20:15] into the room. And that's not something that most people learn at school. So, you know, he's had wonderful caretakers that have been college grads for sure, but just as great.
It's not better. Who haven't been?
Aransas: It's really interesting [00:20:30] and what that means for our own sense of readiness to do whatever it is we want to do. So what are your dreams for Lonely Worm Farm? They're already I'm like, why is the word worm hard to say for me? [00:20:45] Lonely Worm Farm. I feel like my Texas accent really.
I like
Eliza: that. It's good. My Dream is for Lonely, so it's called Lonely and Far. I'll just let you understand this because when Jason and I [00:21:00] bought it in the 2020, and it was like a kind of crazy thing. We had to buy it in three weeks. The pandemic, Felix, all kinds of stuff was happening. So we kind of grabbed up this land.
And it was beautiful, but we didn't, you know, we didn't [00:21:15] have time to do like soil tests and stuff like that before the sale. So we went out shortly after the sale and dug 23 holes in this field and 15 holes in that field. The soil test is like a little hole, like [00:21:30] 6 to 8 inches. inches deep. You take a little bit of the soil, send it to the extension.
They tell you, you know, the chemical makeup yourself, but this was during a drought and the soil was so dry, just filled with rocks [00:21:45] and there were no worms. I didn't like. I didn't find a single worm in the entire field that we were planning on cultivating, and we are cultivating. In fact, Jason was the one that found the one lonely worm at the very end in a different field.
And this worm was [00:22:00] like, dusty. Like, you know, you could just see the dust of it and it looked so scared, like, What are you doing? I'm alone in the universe! Anyway, we named the farm after this worm with the intention of bringing more worms to the soil and regenerating the [00:22:15] soil. So that's the name and the kind of trinity of ideals are the arts, inclusion, and ecology.
So we just want to be a farm that, you know, has a little farm stand and sells honey and maple syrup, which we're [00:22:30] making now, and creates jobs for people with disabilities. Disabilities, both in the farming and the arts, and then, you know, eventually when we have a farm stand, they'll be able to sell like their handiwork, hoping it will be a five day week program, [00:22:45] and they'll be.
Ways you can get involved, like you could come and work on the farm every day and there'll be like a wheelchair accessible, pick your own orchard and berry patch and stuff like that. So you could just come with your [00:23:00] family and spend the day picking yummy things to eat and doing an art project. So, you know, like there should be all kinds of ways to get involved.
And it will be open to people with any sort of disability, whether it's physical or age related or, uh, [00:23:15] developmental or veterans. I mean, you know, like it's, the whole idea is just to be a haven for everybody who just needs a place where they fit in.
Aransas: How beautiful. I
Eliza: guess my dream for the future is that Felix is living close by, [00:23:30] like in a group home, and he and his friends or his housemates come to work on the farm.
That'd be great. Three or four days a week and he spends, you know, holidays and stuff with us and but has a independent life [00:23:45] and that the farm just is a hub for all families and adults to meet each other and to fertilize each other.
Aransas: How beautiful, how beautiful. I can't wait to hear about the impact this has [00:24:00] for Felix and for all of the other folks who need this space and for you.
Yeah, no, it's always, it feeds me for sure. I'm so glad Sabrina introduced us. I'm [00:24:15] so happy. Well, I hope you
Nomination: can come
Eliza: visit, tell your people, like, I love it. Just tell them to go to the website and if they're in the Hudson Valley, all they have to do is email me and I'll give them a tour. I really love visitors.
Aransas: I would love [00:24:30] that. I can't wait to see it. Thank you for being here, Eliza. Thank you for having me
Eliza: and leading such a lovely conversation.
Aransas: Thank you for listening to the Uplifters podcast. If you're getting a boost from these [00:24:45] episodes, please share them with the Uplifters in your life and then I'll Join us in conversation over at TheUpliftersPodcast.
com. Head over to Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast, [00:25:00] and like, follow, and rate our show. It'll really help us connect with more uplifters, and it'll ensure you never miss one of these beautiful stories. Mmm.
Music: Big love [00:25:15] painted water, sunshine with rosemary, and I'm dwelling the perplexing, though you find it flexing.
Toss a star in half for beer around. Best love for relish in a new. [00:25:30] Plant a tree in springtime Dance without all hindsight Bring the sun to twilight Lift you up, woah Lift you up, [00:25:45] woah Lift you up, woah
Lift you up
Lift you up, whoa, [00:26:00] lift you up, whoa, lift you up, whoa, lift you up, do do do do, [00:26:15] do do do do do. Beautiful. It's that little thing you did with your voice. Right? In the pre chorus, right? I was like Mommy, [00:26:30] stop crying. Mommy, stop crying. You're disturbing the peace.