Archives for July 2019

The Journey, The Home, The Gratitude

July 5, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife

It’s funny how a change in routine threw me off my blogging course. It was after seven o’clock tonight when I remembered I hadn’t posted anything on my blog and I certainly didn’t want to “fail” only four days in to the Ultimate Blog Challenge!

Instead, I scooped up a prompt and an image I wrote several years ago and responded here.

This is the result:

The journey itself is my home.”
Matsuo Basho

Question: Write your personal definition of “home”

Home: such an easy definitions for most, but for me – not so much.

I have been longing for home for as long as I can remember and I don’t know that I’ve ever found it. I’ve owned real estate, I have lived under other people’s roofs and no, home remains nebulous.

The most at home I have ever felt is at places where I have never lived which makes no sense at all. I know Dorothy says “There is no place like home,” and it magically gets her back to the family that loves her – but that is as much of a fairy tale as any of the others be they Anderson’s or the Brothers Grimm or a wide variety whose names I don’t know.

Tonight I watched my next door neighbor get escorted out of her house wearing a shorty bathrobe with an older guy in an SUV that had some sort of “justice” emblem on the back. Where was she going? Was she leaving her home for something better, or the house-that-is-seemingly curse for who the heck knows what but it didn’t look very good.

My dog Beth is under my chair because the fireworks are loud and steady and scary to her. Am I providing a feeling of home for her as I tap the keyboard and she feels solace because I am with her? The doggie door is blocked for her own protection. She is probably frustrated that she can’t find escape but she doesn’t know there is even more noise out there than there is here.

Maybe that’s part of what home is: quiet among all the other noisy spaces. A comfort you can’t describe with words because it doesn’t quite make sense yet.

Perhaps defining home will be a part of my next work as my children are almost done growing up and moving out of this place which has given us shelter all these years in this town I have loved to have no feelings for beyond acceptance or resignation.

I do feel alive and enriched when I am on road trips, so the Basho quote rings a distinctive bell.

This journey: turning my heart toward home.

I hear children screaming from a home lit firework of some sort.

I hear Beth breathing below my feet.

I think, momentarily, “Maybe Gratitude is my journey and my home?” It sounds cliché, so I will let it sit in the center of my chest while I sleep. Perhaps there will be a message for me somewhere in those words tomorrow.

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is a writer, a poet performer, a Creativity Coach, and a Mother of three. One of her
greatest joys include loving people into their greatness they just aren’t quite able to realize yet. To set up a complimentary exploratory session, please visit here. Be sure to follow her on Social Media platforms so you may participate in one of her upcoming events. You won’t want to miss a thing – your future self will thank you!

How to Use Your Text & Other “Throwaway Writing” to Make All Your Writing Easier.

July 3, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife

The artists among us might say “Let’s Woo Your Muse” Clearly it is time to restore your writing voice now. Time to discover (or rediscover) the words within that are waiting to be written.

Your muse may have become jaded so these promps will restore your faith AND help you get your goodies on paper

Here’s what we’ll do. We will give you an inspiring quote and write a variety of prompts from it so you have a menu of sorts to elevate you to express yourself.

We are starting today with beat poet Allen Ginsburg. He is helping us figure out what to do with leftovers: text messages, emails, half written instagram captions, unfinished essays and novels we left behind in a pile of whatever thought or interruption came along to distract us.

Have you ever found stuff you put aside or buried in scraps and thought later, “This isn’t bad!”

Let’s scoop up the wisdom we’ve started and never finished and see what’s left to create from a new perspective.

Quote:

“Time’s left its remnants and qualities for me to use — my words piled up, my texts, my manuscripts, my loves.”

Allen Ginsberg

A remnant is a leftover bit of fabric like crumbs are leftover on the plate. When I was a little girl, my mom sewed much of my clothing, she would sometimes buy the remnants that were left on the end of a bolt after someone else used the majority of the fabric.

She would use it to make doll clothes or accent pieces on projects or, since she collected fabric like I collect books, sometimes we just put it away to inspire us.

Time’s remnants are leftover bits of that are connected to a specific time, space or experience and in Ginsberg’s quote, tidbits of writing. The texts he is speaking of are not like today’s texts, messages from one cell phone to another. He is talking about books written and not published.

Those tidbits hold the power of story within them: they are the substance of nostalgic “remember when…” conversations that make connect us to one another. Remember there is power in using storytelling in all our content.

I oftentimes suggest to my coaching clients and people in my workshops to glean or pick up bits and pieces of text messages and emails and Instagram posts to inspire or fill-in-the-blanks of other writing. The other place to look is remnants of memory or conversation.

A women is typing in the countryside, another way of looking at a remnant of time and words, launching inspiration into the air.

Questions:

What remnants has time left you? Pick one remnant and describe it as richly and fully as you can with words that relate to t=e senses, not abstractions like “wonderful” or “awesome”.

What remnants have you left in the lives of people you love or co-workers or even frenemies? Write a small tidbit of a story about one of the remnants. Use these as inspiration for characters in fiction or screen plays.

Lists:

Make a list of 5 – 10 remnants of time in your life you would like to make into a quilt. Be fanciful and true.

Make a list of 5 – 10 remnants of time in your life you would NOT like ANYONE to remember. Be honest, be vulnerable.

Traditional writing prompts:

From the lists and the original questions, choose one which resonates and write interchangeably from these prompts.

I remember….

I wish…

I think….

I can’t leave without saying there are no rights and wrongs as to following the prompts here. There is only showing up for your life and your creativity and using what inspires you to fulfill your dreams, passion and purpose.

You may also choose to use these as conversation starters. I imagine there could be many heartful discussions from what we have launched here.

Do me a favor: leave a comment to tell me which prompt you will scoop up first so that I may support you fully in this adventure of creativity.

I love nothing more than supporting your process.

And Time Marches On…. and This Mom Continues Learning, too.

July 2, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife

I heard a weird scratching at the door which I thought might be the cat, though I didn’t see her get out. I watched as the door opened and Samuel stepped through, smiling.

“What are you doing home so early?” It was only 9:30 and his Japanese class at Bakersfield College lasts until 11:10 and then he usually is home a half hour after that, at least.

“Today is mid-terms,” he said, with a wider small than I am used to seeing across his eighteen-year-old usually-bored-with-his-old-mother face.
“How did it go?” I asked.

“Well,” he said. Since he was smiling even more widely, I continued the conversation.

“When will you find out how you did?”

“Tomorrow I think, probably,” he answered. He \share more, his face still bright, the shortened week thanks to the Fourth of July. He took himself and his soda and Takis chips which he bought on the way home, into his Man Cave before texting me.

“I need to rent “The Last Samarai” with Tom Cruise in it for a worksheet for class. I need to get it done soon.”

We went back and forth via text even though we were about twenty steps apart before I gave him my Amazon log-in so he could watch it on Prime.
I think he was excited to use his new debit card for a thirty-day prime trial, but he could wait and use his shiny newly-minted-adult-no-parents-allowed-goodies for another time.

This all feels wonderfully surreal.

Wasn’t I just showing up when he was in kindergarten, barracuda mom, when the vice-principal insisted my parenting skills were obviously awful or my child wouldn’t be behaving like this?
Wasn’t I just battling it out with educrats about whether or not he could be mainstreamed into more general ed classes?
Didn’t he just call and convene his own IEP meeting in writing his Freshman year to make a change in his education plan?

His time at Bakersfield College for Summer School has been nothing short of remarkable, where I was able to stand as an anonymous witness. I have been a student and an employee there. I can blend in and watch him manage the administrative tasks at one time the educators “in charge” never imagined he would do successfully.

The next few months will be interesting. Now that it’s July, we are on the sixth month count-down to a brand new decade. Whoa. I hadn’t connected the dots like that until just this moment.

What are you looking forward to over the rest of this year?

Julie JordanScott is the author of the upcoming book, Dear Autism Mom, a collection of encouraging, instructing and inspiring letters to parents of children who are on the autism spectrum. Her son, Samuel, recently graduated high school and will be attending University of Nevada, Las Vegas in Fall 2019. She is a Life and Creativity Coach, a Writer, Retreat Leader and Social Media Expert who loves inspiring others into their greatness.

When Flowers Speak about Abundance, Listen!

July 1, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Join the Conversation. Allow Yourself the Surprising Joy that Arises as a Result.

My love affair with moon blossoms started during an exceptionally happy, satisfied time of my life when I would go to the river bed – an arroyo, a space that would house water if there was any to be housed, but at its best that season it was empty. This allowed me to sit in the center of it all and have great conversations, watch the sunset, howl with the moon and be surprised by the sounds of urban nature.

I fell in love with absence during that time: I understood something didn’t need to be there at all for one to acknowledge and love it anyway.

If the river had been flowing, I might not have noticed the heavenly scent of the moon blossoms, so pungent at night.

Last Friday night, I came upon my first blossoming patch of the season near twilight. None were fully open. They sat alongside a different portion of the flowing river. This summer, a lot of flow due to last winter, lots of rain and snow.

I had to go take a look, to pay homage to who I was and who I am and the presence of the moon blossoms amidst all of it.

Considering the current work I am doing, I made this two-minute video.

Please take a look:

Now, consider the prompt as an invitation to conversation. Bring it up with friends and co-workers. Ask on Twitter and make an Instagram post. “What is prosperity to you? How would you define it? When have you experienced it?”

Now – consider the moon blossoms.

“What is calling you to blossom, in darkness or in the light or anywhere? What is calling you to blossom into abundance and prosperity?”

Let the words flow, either on the page or in conversation.

A couple things before you go:

Take a moment to follow me on social media and on YouTube. If you are a blogger or writer across any genre, I offer valuable methods to keep your words flowing.

Leave a comment here, as a way of pledging your devotion and commitment to keep your writing prosperity, your word abundance flowing. If you would enjoy additional support I am offering to tag people in my daily instagram story time lapse posts as a way of saying “Ta-Da! I did it! I did my daily writing!”

The world is waiting for your words… let’s get them on the page now.

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is a writer, a poet performer, a Creativity Coach, and a Mother of three. One of her greatest joys include loving people into their greatness they just aren’t quite able to realize yet. To set up a complimentary exploratory session, please visit here. Be sure to follow her on Social Media platforms so you may participate in one of her upcoming events. You won’t want to miss a thing – your future self will thank you!