Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

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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The Blessings of the Ordinary Extraordinary: The Infinite Loop De Loop of Giving Back after Once Again Receiving Life

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It has been unique to study my life as it nearly ended five years ago today. 

What has happened in the interim? What has shifted? How have the themes of mortality and choosing life and healing resonated throughout my experiences?

The first obvious happening includes the Covid19 Pandemic that changed the world greatly that gained space in the spotlight shortly after I was hospitalized. In fact, during our East Coast visit from Bakersfield we visited a Gaming Arena (my son is a professional gamer) in New Rochelle, New York which was one of the earliest American cities hit by Covid19. 

In February of 2020, my daughter Emma and I visited my parents in Flagstaff and my father died right before we felt comfortable traveling again: I was ten days out of my second vaccination in April 2021 when I got the call: it was officially too late to see my father alive again.

My mortality was first and foremost for those weeks in October 2019 and since then, death, loss and other people’s mortality has been an ongoing theme.

Unfortunately, my youngest brother, Joe, died in December 2021 and my mother died in August, 2023. 

That was a lot of grief in these last five years – and because I am blessed to have many friends as well, I lost too many friends who were too young. Most recently, I lost the woman who I refer to as “My Spirtual Mother” – and I was so grateful to be able to attend her funeral and see her children who I grew up with in Glen Ridge, New Jersey.

At the end of 2019 I started with my 377 Haiku project – a chance for me to practice creativity consistently and share it, much like I shared my days in the hospital. By being seen, heard and experienced while I was in the hospital, seeing people’s comments helped me feel better.

Daily photo taking and short poetry writing and sharing them brought a love influx which helped lift me out of the sadness that felt like it was subtracting so much out of me. Haiku literally saved my life – and that is the title of my book that will soon be out, sharing the profound joy of disciplined creativity. 

It was followed by 377 tree hugs and after that, I started writing a daily love letter to my readers inspired by my mother’s frequent greeting when I first saw her at the start of a new day, “Good Morning, Love.”

One of the biggest challenges of living alone now after I moved across the country from Bakersfield, California to Sussex Borough, New Jersey was not having anyone to greet when I woke up. 

“Good Morning, Love” created a win-win of having many some-ones to say Good Morning to AND once again, it kept me from sliding back into the darkness of depression which at time hovers quite close.

I also enjoy it when friends see me in person (especially in groups) and they say “Good Morning, Love!” to each other. I’ve had people share about how they look to good morning love when they’re feeling down and some people who read it every morning, unbeknownst to me.

This morning I went to High Point State Park to take photos, make videos and bathe in the glorious forest there. I hugged a couple trees and literally asked the trees, the wind, the sky and the sun, “How did I get so blessed?”

How did I get so blessed?

One day at a time, intentionally creating a small something – a container that tells the world, “You are love made form.”

First in Haiku, then in Tree hugs (both of which I still practice, on occasion) and then in Daily Love notes. (If you wonder how to read them, they’re on my personal facebook page.)

I never really thought of a blessing as something we choose AND I do see blessings as something we need to allow and receive.

Sharing these stories is part of what I call “the infinite loop de loop of giving and receiving.” Because I was gifted with more time, I received this blessing of longer life, I fully enjoy and embrace sharing the gift in return.

My everyday joy of experiencing life in the good, bad, boring (though that is rare), extraordinary ordinary and everything in between – wherever I find myself.

There will be 18 more blog posts: I hope you will read a few of them – if you have any questions, please ask so I may respond in a blog post.

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🌟 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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Cozy Socks & Unsticking Pain from Places We Love

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Some mornings it feels absolutely glorious to pull on a pair of fluffy, cozy socks, like I did this morning.

Some evenings it feels right to briefly visit a favorite trail at dusk, just for a few moments to reconnect with the sky, the grasses, the plants you may have missed since you haven’t been here for more than a season.

That was yesterday. 

I stood on the liberty loop trail to watch, to listen. I passed a couple of deer slowly meandering across the street – I imagine they are from the herd I sometimes see in the distance when I am on that trail. 

I was practicing with my video settings when I heard a lone goose in the distance. 

Have you ever heard the call of a lone goose?

I heard it once before, when I was walking on the bicycle path along the Truxtun Extension in Bakersfield. I was in my favorite section, a place I didn’t know aloneness even though most of my visits there were by myself, I always felt deeply connected.

Last night was different. It was as if the little lone goose was there to comfort me, to help me feel connected again, to wipe away some of the pain I had connected with this trail.

Historically, when I connect pain to a place, it is difficult to unstick.

The synchronicity of this goose, appearing exactly when my heart was open enough to hear, was ideal. It felt so good to cry out the lingering sorrow that had been unspent, stuck inside a wall of will, an anti-desire to express it.

Reminds me of one of the reasons it is important to me to get outside and to revisit the spaces I love that may have become associated with sadness. Flagstaff just whispered in my ear.

Maybe 2025. Maybe then.

The tears remind me it is important to get out there again. Unstick the associated pain. Hug some trees. See some friendly faces. 

Hug the lone goose that flies inside me at times, wondering where everyone went and why did they leave me behind?

My feet inside the warm, cozy socks remind me, too, of comfort in softness and deep love of one-self, even when we feel like the baby goose. 

Today is also the fifth anniversary of when sepsis swept through me and I entered the ICU. 

Soft socks. Touch velvet. Tender breaths.

 🌟 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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Gut Kicks & Delayed Returning Day 31/31 of (Self) Belonging:

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I have been wading around the shallow waters of (self) belonging for the last few days due to – not surprisingly – due to what felt like a piercing of my shield (maybe better seen as a cushion, safe space, another word) of my sacred internal safe space.

I don’t feel the need to write the specifics here, but I was thrown by what happened and had the privilege of expressing my emotions with depth and had support to restore myself.

Another metaphor, from the poem “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver, “the soft animal of my body” needed to go back into my cave and gently, quietly lick my wounds in a familiar, anonymous setting.

A bit of a setback and a bigger space of deeper healing because I allowed myself to feel what needed to be felt, to speak what needed to be spoken and perhaps most important, I allowed myself to receive the gift of belonging from my sister – even when the message I was pushing back on and stumbling along the way was translated through past experiences and the tapes that have played in my mind for years that rang out  “you are wrong, you ruined everything, you are unworthy, you are a problem, you don’t belong” which historically brought me to my dank, dungeon exile, empty of the nurturing tools of love and reassurance.

I can still hear my sister’s light laughter when I recognized she reached out to protect me, to be with me in what had become my danger zone.

I’m not accustomed to being protected. I am grateful she did as it helped me stay in the cave longer and use tools that before would vaporize after an attack rather than become completely numb and unable to access my self-nurturing tools at all.

I realize as I continue to process – my acceptance of protection and taking my time before jumping back into the public sharing is also an example of (self) belonging.

During these last 61 days of 2023, I am getting closer to understanding how to express and live from a space of (self) belonging. What a heart felt victory!

How do you connect with the concepts I’m sharing here in this rough, raw draft?

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she has recently finished her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch exclusive reels, videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group

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Hold Space for the Process: Day 17/31 of (Self) Belonging

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This morning I wrote a mish-mash of notes and I decided to share them here because sometimes the growth towards belonging includes a lot of messy, cluttered, uncomfortable thoughts and examination that doesn’t fit nicely into carefully curated containers.

Last night I forced myself to write a poem about what happened after my mother died and I experienced an episode of extreme anti-belonging. The antithesis of belonging. Another variation of not being seen, not being heard and as a result, being left out of the services for my mother.

I really didn’t even want to write that here.

I didn’t want to put it in black and white.

I wanted to sidle into that reality sideways, not telling the whole truth and instead leave context clues but my fingers on the keyboard forced me further.

Last night I forced myself to write a poem of the extreme pain of the aftermath.

I wrote a sentence and then wrote a poem using the words of the sentence as the beginning of the poem. 

I found it difficult to finish. It most likely won’t be shared, but there is a high value in the process of shaping those words meaningfully.

Sometimes belonging to myself means guiding myself down a cragging unsettled path, like when I walk on the rockiest parts of the trail. The trail hurts my feet and my ankles as I balance and move slowly, methodically, my eyes on the ground to steady myself. I wonder in these moments why do I proclaim how much I like to hike? 

Who cares about hiking and healing and belonging if it feels this tortuous to get here?

Sometimes belonging means I must do the things I want/don’t want to do.I must face the most painful aspects of my stories.

Slowly and methodically I am picking up the pieces of grief and examining them and in order to do that, I need to dust and vacuum away the aftermath – the pain I experienced after Mom died, indirectly as a result of Mom’s death that was and wasn’t about Mom’s death. 

The pain is an echo of my core life stories that have caused me the majority of my sadness, my off-and-on-again relationship with depression and the internal battles I have fought for decades.

In order to heal the pain, I need to give myself room to examine it with not only love and compassion and hope. I need to allow the red hot coals of anger to be at the metaphorical table, too. Tthe difference is, perhaps for the first time only. I am recognizing anger directed toward the outside instead of deflecting anger back into myself – which is what reflects the adage from Sigmund Freud, “Depression is anger turned inward.”

In reading an article from Downtown Somatic Therapy’s blog post, I read “love” and “anger” in the same breath. Anger is love? Anger has a component of love? 

For now, at this stage, I am going to engage with anger and let it help me find my way into a deeper sense of belonging to and with and for myself.

Even as I write this, I brace myself for people who will say some variation of “get over yourself and move along” but what is vulnerability if not knowing people may not understand the value of the work and the healing I am doing and going forward, anyway? Isn’t this an example of belonging as opposed to fitting in?

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she has recently finished her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch exclusive reels, videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group

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Grief & Belonging: 31 Days of (Self) Belonging

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Belonging in Grief: Grief is among the most difficult periods of life. We often shy away from talking about grief or death because our culture has norms that are more accepting of thriving, health and youth than “failing”, not being well and aging.

This is exactly what makes belonging within the context of grieving so difficult.

My mother died in mid-August and my grief has only just begun – and complications due to feelings of not belonging have made it even more difficult than it might have been. 

There are times when grieving helps create more belonging. From an unlikely source today, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, we read about NFL Football coach Tony Dungy, who built his team to be successful from having habits to help them win. When Dungy’s 18-year-old son died from suicide, the team became a space of belonging and used that longing to triumph.

This is a bittersweet story. 

Then there are the words of meditation teacher Tara Brach who writes, “A sacred space of true belonging allows us to thrive. We feel seen, understood and valued. We are free, safe and held in love. In this place of true belonging, we have some protection of the darkness found in our world.

“We feel deep grief when this sacred place of true belonging is severed.”

Claire Bidwell Smith, in her book “Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief” discusses “Designing Your Own Resilience Plan” which is easiest in the company of at least one understanding, trusting person with whom you share a feeling of belonging. Use the planning to attract more people who may become your circle of belonging during this challenging time,

Start with one person, baby steps, and allow yourself the room to go slowly. 

You may have a team or organization, a church, a club who may gather to support you in a larger way like the Indianapolis Colts did. You may prefer your experience of belonging to be quiet during your experience.

If you love someone who is grieving, overcome your discomfort in small steps, too. The best step is by letting them know you care about them enough to be uncomfortable. Offer several choices for your friend to choose how to be supported: “Would you like to drive through Starbucks with me or would you like me to drop off a coffee?” might work for some people.

Grief and Belonging don’t naturally seem like they are likely to intersect and it is critical to cultivate belonging after a loss, whether you are the person who is grieving or if you care about the person who is grieving.

This barely scratches the surface AND I think it is important to bring up and talk about, together.

What are your initial thoughts?

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she has recently finished her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch exclusive reels, videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group

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Lesson Gratefully Learned: The Freedom of Boundaries

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I am a week into my period of self-imposed isolation, though I popped onto twitter last night to make one post. This mindful experience of boundaries is different than when I miss out on social media because life is frantic and I can’t post because of a lack of time.

This “I have time but I am purposefully disconnecting” as a conscious choice feels better and it is still strange… different… not what I would have expected.

Sometimes when I have known people to disengage from social media I have questioned their rationale. Some people feel disdain for social media, like it is an enemy or something to conquer. I have always seen social media as another point of connection, not a tool of influence or something I must do, I see it as something I choose to do like choosing to open a gift or not open a gift. 

Allowing those words to appear on my keyboard allows me to see my choice differently. The meaning speaks to me in a deeper, more interesting way.

I initially chose this dark period  (that is the theater term for when there is no production scheduled during a certain period of time.) as a way to minimize the possibility of experiencing more pain than I have the bandwidth for, with this being my first week back at school while grieving the death of my mother. I didn’t know how I would feel, I didn’t know how crushing (or not) my emotions would be.

I didn’t see this time of quiet as a gift to myself, I saw it as an exercise in strength because I receive a lot of energy from hearing your voices reflect back to me in your comments and interactions with me. By choosing to go dark it meant I was taking away the energetic exchange from you to me as well as from me to you. 

A week into the dark period and two days into the school year, I am above fair-to-middling. I am in a space where I can remind myself to smile as I walk around campus, for example. I was able to make a new friend yesterday – the school librarian! Such a natural! I haven’t cried publicly which is good. I have agreed to sing the solo on church on Sunday I was rehearsing the morning I got the call Mom had died which I was scheduled to sing the week she died.

I am taking gentle risks, allowing myself to roll out the soft landing repeatedly without rush or shouldas or if onlys.

As I am writing this I have ten more days to go. In real time when you are reading this, I am probably back. 🙂

I am, as always, grateful you are here, reading.

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she has recently finished her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch exclusive reels, videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group by clicking here.

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Read Until You Arrive at the PS

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This is how deadlines work: we draw a line in the mud, or in the sand or on our foreheads.

We put our heads down and move toward that line.

On the day I wrote this haiku it was possibly the last thing I wanted to do. I have a lot going on in my spirit, I had a lot of responsibilities of leadership and my energy was sapped due to grieving and sadness and not feeling “up to it.”

Instead of avoiding it, I did my best.

I allowed myself to be where I was, without judgment.

I moved forward, with love.

While in process, it looked like the blurry screen, the not quite there words. When I called it finished -well,

here’s how it turned out:

Haiku 13/37

They’re still dancing

Taming from yesterday’s storm

blossoms still open

I may morph this into a tanka. It may take a variety of forms. For right now, right here, this is just right.

Plantain lilies in the church/manse yard, gentle yet harsh teachers.

Coming upon the intimate scene, I chose to honor them and didn’t get as close as I might have usually gotten. Maybe tomorrow, maybe not.

This haiku included study, contemplation, research and presence.

I will remember these lilies, as they were and as they are. Yes. Will return tomorrow.

Is anything about this haiku or what I wrote particularly earth shattering?

No. It is none of those things. 

AND it is earth shattering in that I stayed the course. I shared my progress. I was authentically, whole-heart-and-soul present.

It is so easy to walk away.

The next time you have the thought “Why bother” in one of its many variations, I hope you will remember this moment of time: showing up, in that moment’s best. Not worrying about comparing that moment’s best to anyone else’s best.

PS: This is also why I use the word “Guidelines” instead of “Deadlines.” Guidelines are full of life and possibilities. Deadlines remind us of the losses that loom. I would rather focus on possibilities, even within loss. Guidelines do that for me.

A blurry computer screen and a blurry notebook: sometimes getting to clarity is a journey from deadlines to guidelines and beyond.

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she has recently finished her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch exclusive reels, videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group by clicking here.

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Grief: The Inevitable Meeting

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Meeting Grief, face-to-face, heart-to-heart, soul-to-soul is not something we go into with excitement or joyful anticipation. It is a door we enter grudgingly. For those of us who have experienced more than what feels fair, we may be more open to greet others in the early moments of grief. 

When CS Lewis described his early experiences of grief it is almost like he was walking around both in my head and in my body: 

“There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.”

I know The invisible blanket intimately. There are times when there is an ongoing desire to have other people around but not wanting them to engage with me.  Presence. 

I used to ask people if they could please “breathe with me” at moments where this need became so great. Lewis said grief was like fear: in the other studies I have done – and in my personal experience – grief also feels like anxiety and depression.

In these 30+ years since I first experienced severe grief, I’ve never heard words describing experiences so closely to the sensations I had during these such painful times in mylife.

In preparing for today’s Instagram live broadcast, I literally crawled back into the time immediately after my brother John’s death. 

Ironically, today, when I was lead to the CS Lewis quote on the anniversary of the night I came close to death myself. It was on that night my soul left my body in the intensive care unit and found myself in the all too familiar tunnel which to me felt like an umbilical cord to the sky.

There are no accidents.

I am grateful for your presence as we explore grief together.

If you have questions or comments, please be brave and write them or send me a private message or text. I would love to hear from you.

Woman hugging a cartoon tree - white with black polka dots

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she is working on finishing her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch IGTV exclusive videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group by clicking here.

To watch the Instagram Live Video that inspired this blog post, please visit the link below:

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October Outlook: Grateful for YOU, dear Reader of this Blog

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Autumn leaves and a blue sky with text that welcomes friends, long time and new. Inspiration for writing, blogging and content creation with Julie Jordan Scott.

If I had to use three words to describe myself last year at this time I would say “hurting, perplexed, tenacious.”

IN OCTOBER, 2021

I was hurting because my father died less than six months before October last year. I had been my mother’s primary caretaker from April through July and spent much of that time simultaneously emptying her home before assisting my brothers in moving her into an assisted living facility. I was perplexed because I had managed to hurt my middle daughter by following through to move to New Jersey without adequate ongoing communication for a much needed sabbatical from my life on the west coast. I was tenacious because I didn’t stop trying to get it – life – work – my creative pursuits – better than they had since I had a near death experience in 2019 and quite honestly, for a few years leading up to that.

WHEN LIFE’S PLANS ARE DIFFERENT THAN YOUR OWN….

I didn’t know last October I would go on a wildly circuitous route to find myself starting over again. I am back to the manse where I started my “year of creative retreat and radical self-care” on October 6, 2021.  

I didn’t know it would devolve or evolve into a second period of intense grief, and crisis caregiving of an entirely different sort which lead me to spend January, March, May, June, July, August, half of the preceding December and half of September only to return right back where I started – as if my hopes and dreams chewed me up and spit me out – and I got back up, Slowly and sometimes quite unsurely I brushed myself and my circumstances off and insisted upon finishing what I desperately longed to start AND finish.

AND THE IRONY OF THINGS D/EVOLVING INTO BETTER

Ironically – and I wouldn’t have expected to be saying this – but experiencing that crisis caregiving time healed the rift with my middle daughter, strengthened my reserves and built my west coast family into much more of a team. Our communication is stronger. It is safe to say we all feel more resilient.

There was one important request I made before I got on an airplane and headed back east on September 15.

DOING LIFE DIFFERENTLY: THE SIMPLE THINGS

I said “You guys need to text me for no real reason. You need to let me know how you are, tell me how your day went, ask me how I am doing, because right now, I get scared with every text I receive. 

“When I left last year I only heard from any of you if something bad happened. I do not want it to be like that.”

It isn’t like that.  Our healing through tears, struggles, laughter, strength building and stubborn will changed us all for the better.

I am still grieving – with my younger brother’s death last December 10th there are still tender firsts to experience. I am still concerned about the health of my family members.  There is still left over sadness because I was hustling so much to be sure Samuel’s college tuition was paid I didn’t get to invest in as much time in work around my home in Bakersfield or connecting with friends AND.. things are so much better I am still wondering when I will wake up from this dream.

THE HEALING POWER OF POETRY

In May Swenson’s poem, “October”, one stanza includes this section:

“I sit with braided fingers

and closed eyes

in a span of late sunlight.

The spokes are closing.

It is fall: warm milk of light,

though from an aging breast.

I do not mean to pray.

The posture for thanks or

supplication is the same

as for weariness or relief.”

YOUR THREE WORDS… OR PHRASES.

For you, I am grateful for your presence, I am thrilled to connect with you again, and I am honored to meet and walk alongside new companions

I am relieved and thrilled to be back here for another October with you and another Ultimate Blog Challenge. I have not been stable through any of the months we have done this since… I don’t know when – surely at least since 2019  but that makes me even more determined to be here for the other participants as well as to honor what I have been through this year and what is coming next in the future.

I would love to hear what you are looking forward to in October and how I might help you either in the content I write or the encouragement I may be able to offer you.

I am beyond words grateful that you are here reading my words.

Woman hugging a cartoon tree - white with black polka dots

Julie Jordan-Scott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Northwest New Jersey (Sussex Borough, Nj) where she is working on finishing her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

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