Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

The Bridge to Continued Healing: Unexpected Gratitude & Delight

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Five years ago today I went to the home of Tanya, a neighborhood friend, to meet with some other ladies to have a deep discussion and watch a Ted talk.

I met Tanya from a neighborhood book club and didn’t know her very well and was surprised and delighted when she visited me in the hospital. 

I think this is why I trusted her and went to her home: she lived close to me (so this felt safe). The other women I didn’t know were fellow Moms with children close to my children’s age (so this felt safe.) Deep conversations are among my favorite activity so I knew it wouldn’t be taxing and I knew I could talk at the level of my own current abilities (and this felt safe.)

I am reminded that next time I visit Bakersfield, I will be more intentional to visit more people who have impacted me with their presence in ways I sometimes overlook. 

This is a simple way to take gratitude deeper and add soulful delight to someone else’s day as they added to my life, perhaps not realizing it.

I will remember this for the last week of this blog series – the perfect bridge to November’s biggest American Holiday – Thanksgiving.

🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs Coming soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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The Difference Between Isolation, Solitude & the Impact on Healing

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Today marks another day when I climbed into silence, leaving no trace for future me to know what was going on during the time and space that was the end of October, 2019.

I may have talked to my parents or Samuel or Katherine but more likely I snuggled into the recliner and gazed out the window from across the room.

Knowing my internal struggles, I may have been looking for reasons I was to blame for the circumstances I found myself in. One of my childhood lessons I took very much to heart was taking responsibility without fail.

If I was responsible for almost dying, I was also responsible for choosing to live. 

Unfortunately, in those early days I was slow to pivot into seeing the bright side. 

Instead, I leaned into self-loathing and punishment. I forced myself in a modified solitary confinement. 

I found this quote from Jeanne Marie Laskas which describes it quite well.

“Isolation is aloneness that feels forced upon you, like a punishment. Solitude is aloneness you choose and embrace.” 

In the five years since my near-death experience, I have learned to do aloneness and solitude to the point of an art form. 

Perhaps this is part of the calling to this blog series – to see what sort of inner repair work might still be helpful to the now and future me. Self-examination through writing has always been the closest I have to uncover and then shed the layers that hold me back and deter the metamorphosis.

I am being called now to continue the process which translates into being an empowered leader of my own metamorphosis.

During this final week of this blog series, you are invited to witness and learn from what we discover here.

Screenshot

🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs Coming soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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How Friends Help in Surprising Ways

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“What is an activity that ALWAYS makes Julie feel better afterwards than she felt before?”

Visiting and feeding ducks always makes Julie feel better.

On this day, five years ago, my dear friend Cameron picked me up and shepherded me to Hart Park where together we fed ducks AND we were met by another dear friend who doesn’t like visiting hospitals but was glad to get to meet me “on the outside.”

Cameron and I have a history of duck feeding together and with other people: my children, random other children, friends.

There is an artform to duck feeding, one we created, which includes the entire bird ecosphere at Hart Park.

There are times when I may be completely intent on something else and he will randomly say “Let’s go feed ducks” – which includes, with him, getting bird seed and doing the duck feeding the right way, not my long ago way of getting a cheap loaf of bread and tossing in chunks of bread by the handful.

I mended my ways once I discovered the better way to feed wildlife – though it is probably best to leave them to their own nutritional devices.

On that day five years ago, in addition to feeding ducks and birds I dropped my phone into the pond at Hart Park and was completely bereft but Cameron reached in and grabbed it and nothing bad happened.

I remember in my weakness being terrified because my phone had been and would continue to be a very important connector that kept me balanced and stable while hospitalized. 

It would take me a while before I was willing to use a computer or my notebooks with any level of consistency.

The ducks at Hart Park and communicating with friends who were helping me heal… two important factors in my healing.

Ironically, I have not fed any ducks in my current part-of-the-globe though as a child, I regularly fed ducks with friends.

Maybe the needs haven’t been the same. I will contemplate this for a while, perhaps focusing on observing the birds and ducks instead of creating a dependency for either of us – though maybe a bird feeder in winter?

I will contemplate. 🙂

Julie JordanScott
Julie Jordan Scott

🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs Coming soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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Five Years Ago, I Unconsciously Went Silent

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Five years ago, I went silent.

I chose invisibility. I chose to crawl into silence, again, as that was what I believed would bring me the most comfort. Was it? Did it? I don’t know for certain if it did. I didn’t feel lonely or bereft.

I mostly felt disconnected.

I mostly didn’t understand.

I couldn’t answer any semblance of “the why.”

I didn’t feel motivated to do much of anything.

I remember people coming to the door with food I didn’t want. No one asked what I wanted.

No one suggested this or that.

People took the words they liked and pushed them into my mouth, nodding.

“So great that you’re home!”

Yes. So great to be home, sitting in this corner of the living room in a daze. 

I remember pushing my computer aside, pushing my notebooks aside and thinking about this was not how I expected life to be after Samuel left for college.

This was supposed to be my time for freedom, not my time for sitting in a recliner feeling listless and the exact opposite of being alive.

I showed up minimally before returning always to the corner of the living room, returning relieved, to silence.

Until today, I didn’t know it was on October 22 that the curtain on withdrawal rose on my life stage for a season, the season before Covid19 spread itself out around the world.

There is joy, a quiet joy, in making time to see this experience. To listen to my silence. To come to understand, to love, to honor those moments and mindfully bring myself back with compassion, optimism and relentless hope.

🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs Coming soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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The Morning I Woke Up at Home Again After I Visited the Palo Verde Tree

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It isn’t like a magic wand swept over my life and proclaimed, “Congratulations! You are on the outside!”

On the last day in the hospital, there are some crystal clear memories:

My nurse offered me an “as needed” medicine for my mood (very helpful).

My nurse did not communicate to me clearly about getting my horrible PICC line taken out of my arm.

My PICC line was one of my least favorite parts of my hospital experiences. The installation was rather dehumanizing. In retrospect, being in the ICU included a lot of dehumanizing experiences.

If you are wondering “What is a PICC line, anyway” I will explain it briefly, but even in explaining it I get squirmy and uncomfortable. PICC is the abbreviated name for peripherally inserted central catheter. It is a long, thin tube that is inserted through a vein in your arm and passed through to the larger veins near your heart.

I remember one medical pro seeming to be annoyed that I had a PICC line installed. After I sort of understood more what it is, I can see how they might not like it. On the other hand, my veins roll a lot and after a couple days in the hospital, they were getting pretty scarred up.

My PICC line was uncomfortable, probably because they put small, weighted balls on the end, I suppose to keep it safer.

I wanted it out but because the initial installation was so unpleasant I was not looking forward to it coming out AND I knew it was a necessity to go home.

I remember wondering when they were going to take it out, I even wondered aloud.

“She offered to take it out and you said no,” I was told.

“I did?” I was confused. “I want it out, let’s get her back in here.”

The PICC line came was removed without any pain and with that, the full speed ahead train to release me happened and I was rolled out the door and all I wanted to do was go to the bluffs. I wanted to go sit by a tree. I wanted to be outside and smell the dry, burnt air of Bakersfield.

The familiar, post summer scent of burnt grasses smelled like home. The bluffs were a sign of normalcy. 

Emma, Ken and I walked – I hobbled – to a bench where I wanted to be quiet and just look out at the familiar scene. I needed to feel as normal as possible. 

When I was in one spot, I felt pretty normal. When I got up to move about, I felt ancient and exhausted. I didn’t realize this would become my new normal for a while.

I didn’t know the roughest times post-almost-dying were on the horizon.

I simply wanted to feel better. Normal-adjacent would be better than spending another day trapped in a hospital bed. At least that was my hope and prayer.

# # #

Julie Jordan Scott, writer, creativity coach, award winning actor walking in the woods
Julie Jordan Scott, walking in the woods

🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs Coming soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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Where did my creativity and urge to write go?

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Writing and creativity are like breath to me.

The fact I left next to zero evidence of creativity between September 24 and March 27 says a lot about how I was feeling physically after my near death experience and how that impacted my inner muse.

My whole body became dark, gloomy and sad.

It felt like all my strength was gone – and normally writing and creativity save me – but when there is no strength left…. this is where I sat for days, weeks and months.

The pandemic was looming and only my son’s return for Thanksgiving helped me to begin feeling slightly right, in flickers of moments that didn’t last very long.

Ironically, I didn’t remember much of this. It is as if everything became blurry, including my memory.

I’m grateful those days are passed.

This is the anniversary of the day I left the hospital. Finally.

🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs Coming soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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The Last Day My Brave Uterus Bled

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There are many days in the hospital that are indistinguishable from one another, but one particular four-to-maybe six hour stretch of time stands out in my memory.

I remember the nurse: she was quiet and graceful, almost like a ballet dancer in the chorus, so quiet you almost don’t know that she is there but her beauty adds to the experience and you miss her when she is gone.

I remember watching her when she was doing something related to my car: perhaps fixing the ever present blood pressure sleeve so it would automatically record my momentarily high blood pressure. I noticed how beautifully symmetrical her hair style was.

She was the only nurse who made sure I had time to get ready to go to sleep during the normal hours: all those hygiene habits the others ignored.

She also noticed something else I thought I had noticed secretly.

“Are you still having your menses?”

I looked down and said, “No? Not usually, but my uterus in here – today – seems to be trying really hard to be like she used to be.”

I patted my lower belly and said, “Good job, sweetie. We made it through a tough time. You have done your job well. Thank you… you don’t need to bleed anymore….”

I looked up and her round gentle face looked like she might smile, but she didn’t.

I wrote in my daily check in five years ago:  my sweet uterus is one of my most precious organs. She has been sending tiny menstrual type blood flowers for the last couple days, reminding me of the lives I’ve borne (and lost) and borne. So reassuring. Made for great conversation with my nurse, too. My Uterus… sweet thing. She’s been talking to my kidneys as my creatine levels got closer to normal.

The thoughtful nurse had taken the alarms off my bed so I could brush my teeth and wash my face. The concept of making my hair look better was long gone. I had braided it to keep it in place and hopefully less stringy than it would look otherwise.

I didn’t spend long in this room. I was pushed into my last room before this nurse’s shift was over – somewhere between 2 and 3 am, the usual time for my moves. I don’t know how people who are healing are supposed to get quality rest when we are moved around from room to room in the wee hours of the night all the time.

October holds a lot of important dates for me, including this one.

On October 19, 2019, my brave, beautiful, loving uterus bled for the last time.

🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs Coming soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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The Day Before Resilience Found Me

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The day before this day I had my least favorite hospital roommate.

On the step down unit from the ICU I understood I was to behave almost in the ICU way: In the stepdown I was still hooked to more wires than I would like to be. I was to stay in bed most of the day. Chill. Be calm. Do as I am told.

My roommate clearly did not want to be there. She was out of her bed almost the whole time. She made up her bed, I remembered wondering why she did that. She had visitors most of the time. Maybe it was that she was taught when you wake up you get out of bed and you make your bed right away.

I have a lot more compassion for her now than I did then, when I was fussy in my own way. Another thing she did was completely ignore my existence. The next day I was put into a new room, a windowless to me room, and my roommate was snuggling with her man when I arrived in the middle of the night.

Other people moved in and out of this room and I was stuck there for several days waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Re-reading my first day there, I can feel the crusty-ness in my writing. I refused to pretend to be cheerful in this room. In the end, it served me authentically and well.

There is no window available from my new bed. It could be anytime of day or night but the clock tells me it is 7:14 am.

I’m off the step-down unit so I was totally unprepared for the loud alarm to sound when I had the audacity to take myself to the restroom at 5:30. All I wanted was to be able to use the restroom without having the nuisance of an alarm stop me.

Today we will see whether I need dialysis or not. So many prayers for healing from friends and strangers alike. Makes me feel loved.

🎊 4:40 pm update- creatinine levels are finally declining which means things are on the mend. Please continue to pray for the rest of the way – and hopefully on Sunday I’ll be home again.

1. I am grateful to you for reading. Some of you have reflected about how I have helped you or inspired you into action I had no idea about until reading your comments here. Seeing them in writing is so helpful because I can read them and pinch myself over and over again… and smile.

2. I am grateful for TwitchTV. I got to watch Samuel having great fun last night (for those who don’t know my son is a Freshman at UNLV and plays competitive video games there that are live-streamed. It’s a great way for me to get a visual on him.) What most mommies really love.

3. I am grateful for the nurses I have gotten to know. I’m happy I moved to this floor because I saw my favorite conversation partner this week. She sang out, “Julie! I’ve been thinking of you!” Being remembered is an ultimate compliment.

2024 me says: Nurses are (mostly) saints.

🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs Coming soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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Documenting the Days: On the Way to Beginning Again

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Reviewing my life via the last five October 17ths is so intriguing. 

I would have forgotten so much specificity.

Two years ago I learned Katherine was pregnant in a comedy of errors. Ken texted me and asked how long I knew about the baby.

“Baby?” I texted “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I immediately leaped to Emma, since she was on the west coast with him and then I thought “Samuel?”

Emma started texting me then, attempting to run some version of interference.

“Emma, do you have something to tell me?” 

Meanwhile they reached out to Katherine to confess they had received a card in the mail in Bakersfield which beat all the other cards to other places and even before I was told in person. 

More bewildering to me is that she held onto this secret for three months.

Apparently she didn’t get the Mom-code memo the future maternal Grandma gets to know first. 🙈🤦🏻‍♀️

All of this overshadows the memories from five years ago when I was stuck in a hospital holding pattern.

The worst thing was my PICC line and feeling like I was being held hostage. 

They were starting to threaten me with the need for dialysis since my kidneys were not bouncing back like they hoped. 

I wondered if I would get out of the hospital. 

Grandbabies? An impossibility. 

Possibly going through dialysis at that time was a probability – and back then I didn’t have the awareness to know how that would have impacted my entire life.

😢

Today my Grandbaby was her charming self – and it took a lot of energy to be with her and reminded me that I need to have more structured activities for her in addition to free play. Just fun things to do together which for this little girl includes chores and conversation.

And today she started using Spanish. She said “agua” and “water” while drinking water. She said “amiga” and “adios” in exactly the correct context.

I’m alive. I’m active in her life. So far from when I hovered on death and was numb and stricken silent on my way back to get better.

Do any of these experiences resonate with you?

🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs Coming soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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“Stories are my medicine”

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Yosemite vising in 2020 to continue my healing adventure from Valley FEver.

Four years ago Emma and I were visiting Yosemite. It was during the pandemic and the park only had 20% of its usual number of visitors. It was an amazing time.

One of the very notable aspects of it was a then-to-now sharing of how amazing it was to see a bear! We saw THREE bears in all and we thought his was some sort of amazing time. 

Less than two years ago I saw my first bear in Northwest New Jersey running across an offramp near Katherine’s home.

This Spring, I made an acquaintance with the neighborhood bear I now call Baboo. Baboo is a regular fixture who I am aware may be around quite regularly and impacts when I take out my trash, where I park my car and my relationship with my neighbors across the street.

A lot can happen in four years, in one year, in five years.

Some people would suggest we brush away memories and not talk about them.

One of my experiences in the hospital was sharing stories with nurses. My favorite nurse of my time in the hospital thanked me for asking about her life because other people tell her to stop telling her stories.

“Stories are my medicine” I told her.

“I’m grateful you share different kinds of medicine here with me.”

What story do you not tell that you think would help you heal if you told it, freely?

🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs Coming soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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