Laughter, Tears, Anger: All In a Days Work/Play

Yesterday I laughed myself silly while I walked around a local park in a rather strange outfit posing for my camera that was propped up on a tripod sitting on top of an unoccupied park bench. At first I wondered why people were looking at me so funny. What was unusual about… and then I remembered. It isn’t every day a normal middle aged woman is walking around a park carrying a “magic wand” as if it was a saber, wrapped up in a scarf-as-close-to-Katniss as I could manage with a basket full of goodies including collagen powder, “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek and not one but two journals.

I am blessed by creative friends who come up with multiple ways to express themselves creatively and invite others along for the fun of it. Most recently my friend Jessica created a Quarantine Scavenger Hunt.

Right now I am a free agent player: I didn’t want the pressure of being on a team because of my lifelong worry of letting my teammates down, failing them with my inability to achieve perfect gameplay.

My “perfect gameplay” is cavorting in public places being silly so this I could do.

It didn’t even matter that I was alone in this, I laughed and played and left “being normal” somewhere on the other side of town. What happened next fascinated me though.

I had so much fun with my soul play that I came home and wrote. I didn’t just write, I dove into my words and my meanings and felt as if I was tumbling into the magical, mystical, unexplainable mysterious realm and that is not necessarily a place one wants to go without a companion or at least a flashlight.

I wanted all the noise in my mind to stop and I knew the best way to calm it and myself was to continue writing and continue fishing up images from my history so I could make sense of them, even if it felt dangerous.

Even if it felt unwieldy and even if I tore my clothes, opened up my scars and had to ugly cry alone through it all I knew I would get through it.

And then I got angry. Angrier than I have been in months, maybe in years. I was so angry, so over the top out of control angry I felt like I would burst. All of this happened silently.

.It’s true – it was all via text and in my notebook the rage fumed and it felt so good. I haven’t allowed myself much anger in small spurts so when it arrives it is a torrential downpour. I don’t believe in tarnishing other people’s experiences so my daughter who was in the same room may have had hints from my breath patterns, but she didn’t say anything.

Over text message, my friend Heather gave me a text blessing to let it all out and let it all go so I did exactly that I let it all out and I tuned into a youtube meditation about letting go which helped me get to sleep.

I woke up transformed.

I am not angry this morning, I am content. I am moving forward. I am grateful I was able to be as angry as I was and not pollute other people’s experiences. Maybe this is one of those positives of quarantine life, I am able to experience extreme anger but not show it on the outside and not let it destroy me on the inside which used to be an unconscious habit.

Now I am able to process creatively through conversation and making so that I engage my friend and they know what is happening with me (rather than retreating) and my art becomes even more layered and interesting.

I finished two poems yesterday I never would have had the courage to write if I hadn’t allowed myself the luxury of consciously expressed anger.

I am not suggesting knee-jerk, unconscious anger – I am offering an alternative to people pleasing, stepping aside, “I’ve got this under control” covered up anger and “blurting” anger with conscious, constructive, transformative anger.

Since we started experiencing limitations due to the pandemic reaching into the lives of Californians, I have suggested we give ourselves permission to feel whatever we need to feel.

That may mean soul play and hours later, transformative soul creativity and then transformative soul anger and back again.

This is a messy, confusing, first time for all of us experience.

While we may not enjoy every step of it, I urge you to stay with it keeping your eyes wide open. As best as you can, keep your sense of humor intact.

My fun moments of soul play unleashed the anger that needed to be expressed. Today, I am ready to dive in, unglued, again.

Thank you for visiting. Please tell me in the comments how things are going for you.

Julie JordanScott is the Creative Life Midwife. She inspires people to live their life as an artform and take action towards their best results. During the 2020 Pandemic she is also leading daily Virtual Coffee Dates, Facilitating Intentional Conversation so people will feel less isolated during this time of social and physical distancing. Join the conversation by registering for free by clicking this link.