Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

Take Time to Reflect: Mindful Action = Amplified Results

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I alternated this morning between angry, sad and anxious.

Hardly a productive combination of ways of being: more like a recipe for turbulence and possible destructive action – which tends to create more emotional carnage and rarely anything with an ongoing positive flavor, at least not in my life.

So far this morning I have cried and fretted. I have cleaned and sulked. I have edited some images and now, finally, I am writing,

I managed to have small moments of reflection primarily because I know reflection will (eventually) yield results though sometimes – in the process – reflection feels pretty lousy.

I wrote a micro-poem in a moment of anger this morning. I like it but I probably won’t rush out to post it all over social media because then my reflection turns into someone else’s pain. I don’t want to cause pain. Ever.

  1. Reflect in short bites. If it feels lousy at first, let it feel lousy with one caveat: attempt to keep your lousy in your own realm.
  2. Write, art or exercise out your reflections as a means of digesting whatever appears. Sometimes one, two or all three (and repeat) is necessary.
  3. Add an element of forgiveness into your process. Like in #5for5BrainDump when we focus on gratitude at the end of our five minutes, focus on forgiveness of yourself and others when you are completing your reflective time. Punctuate with gratitude and intention as feels right.

Interesting to note: in simply writing these words (total time investment about 7 minutes) I feel better. I feel less cranky, less anxious, less fretful.

Week ahead: I am coming your way. We are going to be great together!

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

 

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B is for Bella Bella Akhmadulina: Literary Grannies from A-Z/2018 #atozchallenge

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One of my favorite aspects of doing this challenge is I encounter new writers. Bella Akhmadulina was a Russian poet, essayist and translator I didn’t know until I wanted to find a new granny to represent for the letter B.

Those of you who are writers and poets, what would it be like to perform in front of a packed arena, as if you were a rock star or super bowl athlete?

That’s what happened for Bella Akhmadulina! She was well loved, defended the dissidents and in doing so, was not published much. She was among the top 4 poets of the time in Russia – and the only woman in the group.

She was one of 40 writers who banded together in 1993 a group of writers to stand up against then President Boris Yeltsin.

I want to get to know Bella Akhmadulina better. I hope you do, too.

Writing Prompt: Imagine yourself a Writing (or whatever your passion may be) Rock Star. What would you say to the crowd gathered to watch you do your thing? Take 5 minutes to write – and just let your words flow without forethought or editing.

Julie has participated in the A to Z Blog Challenge for several years and is thrilled to be back, once again with Literary Grannies. Follow here throughout April for blog posts featuring women of literary history along with a daily writing prompt that reflects each featured writer.

Julie Jordan Scott is the Creative Life Midwife: a writing coach who specializes in inspiring artistic rebirth for those who may have forgotten the pure joy of the creative process. She offers individual creativity coaching as well as creating individualized programs for businesses and groups in the form of workshops, webinars and more. Contact her at 661.444.2735 for immediate assistance with facilitation, speaking or experiencing an enriched life no

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Writing Beyond Showing Vs. Telling: Wisdom from Ursula K. Le Guin & Laura Ingalls Wilder

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One of the best ways I have found to improve my writing is to study the lives of writers who went before me.

I’m not sure when I became blissfully obsessed by the lack of women writers who were quotes and looked toward by the literary establishment, but this passion has brought me countless hours of joy and pleasure in its pursuit. Today, two women writers I revere. I spoke about some of this on a recent FacebookLive broadcast. At the bottom of the information is a link to watch this and more videos that are a part of the #WordLoveYourself project I am working on with Writer and Blogger, Christine Anderson. 

Ursula K. Le Guin– a powerhouse writer and trailblazer in both style and substance – died recently.  Le Guin was raised in the shadow of one of the most prestigious intellectual spaces in the Country, University of California, Berkeley.  Her father was a faculty member and her mother was also a non-fiction writer.

I’m reading her most recent book, “No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters.” And have also read bits and pieces of what she is best known for, science fiction.

She doesn’t believe in the adage of “Show, Don’t Tell” and believes people have gotten lazy and NEED the exposition of TELLING.

Laura Ingalls Wilder – best known for her series of “Little House” books which became a marketing juggernaut in the 1970’s thanks to a hit television series – learned early how to tell AND show simultaneously when she became the eyes for her sister, Mary, who lost her vision during childhood. The Ingalls Family lived frequently as wanderers, oftentimes poor and moving about regularly trying to keep the family fed and cared for meant giving up “extras” like education and new clothes.

Her descriptions are vivid and crisply written, oftentimes woven in a storytelling style.

What can we learn from these two very different yet similar Literary Grannies?

  1. Telling isn’t all bad: it is the CLUNKY exposition that is horrid. Le Guin sounds as if she gets frustrated by writers who leap into dialogue without any background or explanation so the dialogue doesn’t have anything to “hold onto”.

The worst for me is watching a TV show or movie where a lazy script writer puts dense clunky exposition (telling) into a moment that might have come alive with old fashioned story telling – the WHAT HAPPENED

This is the Berkeley Laura Ingalls Wilder would have seen when traveling there in 1915 to see a theatrical production when she traveled across from San Francisco (where she covered the World’s Fair for the Missouri Ruralist) and then took the Street Car along San Pablo Avenue from Oakland to Berkeley.

approach which is also exposition, just exposition done in a better, more engaging manner.

  1. Another technique is to “project the scene in your minds eye” and then step into the scene. Live it in words via the senses. What do you hear, see, feel against your skin? Work on making the telling a part of the showing. They don’t have to be separate and one good and one bad.

This fits perfectly with my belief AND is always better than either/or.

  1. Make practice into a game. Try showing and telling in different ways.  Share what happens by commenting here. You may also join our live streams on our Facebook page and writing community.  Livestreams flow directly into Facebook.com/JJSWritingCamp for the Word Love portion of #WordLoveYourself and Facebook.com/MindfulYenta for the Love Yourself Portion where my friend, writer and blogger Christine Anderson hosts.  Experience more community conversation in the Word-Love Community group. You are welcome everywhere.

 

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming soon!

Contact Julie now to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

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5 Simple Ways to Use Affirmations To Fuel Your Best Writing:

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Affirmations are a simple and helpful technique to switch your mind from getting stuck in loops of destructive messages and tune into creative, constructive thought patterns instead. If you are unfamiliar with affirmations at all, go to google and search for “Introduction to Affirmations.”

If you are familiar with how to use affirmations and would like to see how to use them as a tool for writing, stick around – this will be helpful!

  1. Combine Affirmations with deep breathing. Say your affirmations aloud as your day begins and then throughout the day. A good rule of thumb for timing is before standard meal times and right before sleep.
  2. Use Affirmations as a free flow writing warm up. If you use a relatively short affirmation (seven words or less) simply write the affirmation on your page repeatedly for a minute and then see where your pencil, pen or fingers on the keyboard wants to go. Follow the flow of the energy after you have affirmed yourself as a writer and usually the difference in what you write is nothing short of astonishing.
  3. Do the classic mirror work: look into the mirror and speak your affirmations aloud to your reflection. Smile at yourself as you would smile at your best friend. While this technique gets a lot of flack, try it at least 5 times to see if it makes a difference for you. If it doesn’t fine, move along and say you tried.
  4. Use several short writing affirmations in a row, like an affirmation chorus. There are days when general affirmations work or other days when affirmations about starting, completion, editing or revision work best.
  5. Start and continue. When you fall down, get back up and start and continue again. The world is waiting for your words. Today, play with writing your affirmation and then flow into free flow/brain dump writing for five minutes like I did below.

Let me know how it goes! Now: here are my words, fresh off my paper – #5for5BrainDump style which means no editing, no forethought, just allowing my energy to move the words ontot he page.

I am blessed with sweet satisfaction when I complete my writing projects.

I am blessed with joy and fulfillment every time I sit to write for five minutes and allow the words to move through me rather than control each letter, each vowel, each consonant. Funny, isn’t it, how when I let go of the control, not only does the flow feel better but most of the time the meaning, rhythm and sound gets better, too.

I am blessed with exhilaration when people read my work and appreciate it and tell me.

I am blessed with smiles of connection when people read my work and feel themselves in it: they not only know who I am (this is less important) they know more of who they are.

I am thrilled to dive deeper with rewriting my narrative: looking at the facts from a space of love amps up my awareness of the sacred in everyday. Some people call this magic, some miracles, some are too deep in their to-do lists to even notice AND it feels so good to share the stories.

I am blessed with friends who listen, who do lift my chin, who cherish what I am up to and reflect back to me the goodness and beauty in what I create. I feel valued and not leeched upon. I feel precious because I am precious.

I am overflowing with ideas to bring what I am remembering into concrete, working forms to serve the world and make it a more welcoming, more growth, more constructive and creative place.

I am blessed with sweet satisfaction when I make progress.

I am happy – so happy – in seeing this single page fill up. I am grateful to hear my son’s footsteps outside my room and not rush in to see what he needs but give him the gift of self awareness and personal responsibility knowing HE can take care of it.

I am grateful for timers that ring – and realize in just five minutes I learn and grow in unfathomably wondrous ways.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming soon!

Contact Julie now to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

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The Most Important Writing Tip of All

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Are you ready for the single most important writing tip there is? The one that will change your writing game forever?

I can feel some of you cringing and some of you perking up.

One side says, “There are no single most important writing tips.”

You excited ones are literally thrilled that I have THE answer. I have THE secret that will help you to become a best seller!

Here is the most important tip:

Keep your butt in the seat and write. Don’t think about anything else, just move your fingers on the keyboard or your pen moving across the page and write.

You may be in a coffee shop, you may be on your treadmill with your voice activation tool writing AND the intention is to WRITE: so you aren’t reading about writing, talking about writing, sharing your writing goals or watching livestreams about writing or taking a class about writing you are actually doing it. Writing.

You might be ready to throw something at me at this point. Please don’t. Please stay here and I’ll give you the secondary part of this tip which is HOW TO keep writing.

#1) Write anything. Good bad or indifferent, write anything even if all you write is “Look at me, I am writing!” over and over on the page.

Sometimes I have been known to write “I love writing” and after seven or eight times writing “I love writing” more starts to flow. It is like turning the writing key into the ignition. Suddenly, with a little bit of gas and movement of the necessary elements (words and motion) you find yourself going somewhere with your words.

You could try:

“Yes, Julie told me to write, so I am writing!”

“To write is to live to live is to love I love to write.”

“I love writing.”

“I love writing tweets” or “I love writing blog posts” or “I love being the content queen!”

“Look at Julie (insert your name) write. Write, (Your Name), Write!”

You may join our Word-Love Writing Community on Facebook and/or participate in our #5for5BrainDump writing sessions offered via Periscope/Twitter and Facebook Live. 

The most important writing tip ever?

Keep your body planted and move your pen, pencil or fingers on the keyboard to say what it is you want to say.

Your voice is so important. The world is waiting for you to write. Your audience is lining up… perhaps impatient or more likely than not they’re just making due until YOU arrive!

So let’s go, let’s write. Today is the only today you have. Write in it!

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming soon!

Contact Julie now to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

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Gifts of Forgiveness + Haiku, Breath, Questions & Moving Your Pencil Across the Page

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In revisiting my life narrative, I am revisiting all experiences without weighing in on judgment in the process. I found this from 2011 when seeking writing tips to share via social media. 

Instead, I found this gift to pass along to you, now.

I woke up this morning feeling fear rumbling in the middle of my chest. My heart was racing just enough to tell me “I am afraid. I should be afraid, I should be worried, I should – I should- I should.”

I rolled over to look out the window at the soft morning light.

There was nothing in that light telling me to be afraid.

I got up and poured myself some ice water, some vitamins and stood, quietly, breathing
in the silence as I shusssshhhhed my heart internally.

There was nothing in the coolness of the water telling me to be afraid, to be worried.

I felt my feet as I walked back to lie down for a few more moments before beginning my day.

I allowed the pillows to support my neck and head. I completely felt the sheets against my skin, the soft breeze of the fan offering up refreshment at the beginning of what will be another more than warm day.

This is what forgiveness feels like: support,cool air, hushes like a gentle mommy as she taps our back as we try to sleep, fitfully. She breathes with us, reminding us everything is fine, truly, everything including us is just fine.

I am an expert at forgiving others.

I tend to let go and forgive long before the other person has even thought to ask for it. Sometimes I think I forgive too easily, before I have given the true meaning of grace its due.

The one person I am the least likely to forgive is myself.

This morning, I started understanding self-forgiveness on a deeper level.

My primary teacher/life coach/personal development guru for today’s integration lesson was Louisa
May Alcott. Many of us only know Louisa May Alcott as the author of the classic tale, “Little Women”.
She wrote and lived so much more than this one book that made her a household name.
She wrote, “We all make mistakes. It takes many experiences to shape a life. Try again.”
in her short story, “Transcendentalist Wild Oats”

She knew and lived forgiveness more than a hundred years ago. Reading one short story of hers gave me more insights than any personal development book written in this century or the last has given me.

I thought I had nothing to write today.

I started with haiku:

waiting for coffee ~
book opened to page ninety ~
eye glasses on desk

Re-read an essay I wrote in January and gleaned this sentence to tweet:

“Today I will continue to give space for my heart’s wisdom to rise above the tyranny of the “must do now” list.”

From there I tiptoed to this quote from Miss Alcott I had carefully copied yesterday and remembered my earliest moments from today. I decided they were share-worthy.

“We all make mistakes. It takes many experiences to shape a life. Try again.”

What forgiveness are you waiting to offer yourself?

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

 To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

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Now Begin Again: How to Find Success Through Rewriting Your Life Narrative

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One of my weaknesses is borne from one of my strengths.

I create so vigorously and so often I forget what I write – and in so doing I lose a lot of the depth that seeks to be birthed.

A little less than a month ago I decided I wanted to work on rewriting my life narrative. I wanted to intentionally rework some of the messages I believed from my past in order to create a present and future that is more aligned with who I am, more aligned with my core beliefs.

Ultimately, I sought to merge my core beliefs with my unique gifts and talents to create a body of work – in this case a life and a sustainable income – that matters to myself and to others in the world as well.

While flowing in some areas, I felt hopelessly blocked in others. Reworking my narrative vigorously and openly seemed to be the best path.

I started along the journey and almost quickly as I started I stopped.

It wasn’t a big. dramatic stop with brake marks from my tires left on the road, it was just quietly not continuing because… perhaps the coffee finished brewing or a child made a request or I got a notification from Instagram or who knows what but I got distracted.

Note: this is a common practice, too, right on the verge of breakthrough I have a tendency to veer off course. I know this about myself. It doesn’t mean I always act accordingly in response.

The rest of this brief chapter I’m writing will right that practice. It is interesting to note in re-reading what I just started to edit and mold less than five days ago  I can’t recognize when it is is the seven-years-ago me “speaking” and when it is the just several days ago me “speaking”.

Today, I realize that isn’t the part of the story that matters.

I also realize this preface is taking on a life of its own which isn’t necessarily fruitful, another way block shows up. Let’s get to it.

Let’s explore the originating story now.

On this path to rewriting a damaging narrative, I have been reviewing content from the past and fusing those stories with the light of what I now know to be true.

This morning I read a seven-year-old blog post wherein I wished about having and themes of grace (a topic of exploration scheduled this week) and the be-do-have coaching formula which popped into my head and thoughts last night as I drove. I had no recollection of the relationship of “I wish” with “Be-do-have” – the seven-years-ago me is once again reminding me how smart I was and am.

The final synchronicity was in the opening paragraph. It overflowed with woundedness – both writing wounds and be-ing wounds: when people who matter to you reflect your being is somehow not good enough or is otherwise ugly or unwanted. Read now from 2010:

 “As I prepare to write my Wishcasting entry, I can’t help but hear a chorus of voices from my past, intoning slight variations along the theme of “You just can’t do anything in a small way, can you?”

In my mind’s eye  the “small way” tended to include either a facial or a vocal jeer or both and I always ended up feeling somehow less than even if I had accomplished something unique, visionary or just more out there than most people are comfortable with, but the jeers left a lasting scar on my psyche. That scarred kid doesn’t want to post my wish, doesn’t want to admit the lengthy process I took to getting to my wish because other people who made wishes  simply dove right sharing their wishes without risking life, limb or burning down your homes.

My end-of-2017 self reappears writing:

I wish to have a sense of peace that comes from abundance, from prosperity of the tangible kind – like my wish to have cash flow in and out, out and in, from multiple sources. My specific wish for a long, long time has been $25,000 dollars in and out, out and in, coming in from purchases of my products and services, flowing out to invest in making the world a better place and continually, infinitely repeating this joyful, deliberate practice.

I smile into that thought, feeling my fingers as they continue to tap even after I almost stopped – my limiting beliefs were about to hijack my fingers so instead I will intone.

I wish, I wish, I wish and I willfully intentionally lovingly agree to take action toward this image of actively manifesting and taking steps toward this wish coming to fruition. Further, I will continually, infinitely repeat this joyful, deliberate practice.

I will trust this process.

I wish to have the sense of peace that arrives on the wings of plenty and extends beyond one’s heart. I wish to move beyond an illusion and concept into reality. The birds begin to sing out my window. My heart smiles as my fingers continue to type.

I will wish in a big way because I am a big, larger than life persona. This isn’t a bad thing to be hidden, this is a fun, festive reality. Nowhere did “offensively large and loud” pop into this writing. Those people who jeer when they spoke to me of disdain were actually reflecting their own jeers at themselves, not at me or my hopes and dreams and plans. Whoever these people were – they live only in my past and may not harm or influence me now.

I wish to feel satisfied and content with the progress I make as I take action willfully toward this wish coming to fruition. This hunger I feel in my belly is the delightful recognition of alignment.

And today, Sunday, December 17, 2017 I will devote myself to repeating the key points of this chapter of my life narrative:

I trust abundance flows in the space where value is received from taking aligned, intentional loving action using my unique gifts and talents. My scars and wounds are part of the curvy road map to my most satisfying here, now and future. I trust my process, I trust in my resilience, I trust in the collaborative process of restoration and in rewriting this narrative I reclaim and rebirth my Self.

(And I can even laugh at the desire to say “This is a draft and I claim the right to continue to draft as necessary.)

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming soon!

 To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

 

 

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Words: Are Healing. Are Light. Consciously Offered, are Love in Form. Use with Care.

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“Every kind of creative work demands solitude, and being alone, constructively alone, is a prerequisite for every phase of the creative process.”

Barbara Powell

I remember when Katherine was in pre-school and we had our first parent-teacher conference. It was her pre-K year and I felt like this was a HUGE thing and ran the risk of discovering what a rotten parent I obviously was.

It was none of that. She was doing great, was reading a bit and such a delight to the entire campus. (Some things don’t change, even more than twenty years later.)

I remember five years ago when I went to my primary care doctor to have a spot on my face tested I was sure was nothing. It was something. A week later I was called by the dermatologist I had been referred to. I was standing in the office at Samuel’s school when the call came. It was melanoma. Katherine was about to return to school at Smith College and wouldn’t be around for the surgery. Samuel had started 6th grade, Emma 10th grade.

I had surgery and received a lovely reminder of my cancer via the scar on my face. I spent time creating art and writing about it. There is a link to a post on my old blog about it I can’t even remember writing but in retrospect had some insightful, caring writing that deserves to be read again.

Five years later I have not had a return to melanoma but I do sport a fancy heart shaped scar on my face, I have had basal cell carcinoma removed from my back and actinic keratosis led to facial lotion chemotherapy and just this morning I learned I need another round of facial lotion chemotherapy.

This time the actinic keratosis had spread more, so she froze the four spots where it had popped up and sent me off with a prescription.

My skin still stings from the freezing process and I am not quite ready to be my cheerful, upbeat, face the world squarely with confidence self. I do feel compelled to meet the world with passion – after I take a moment to reflect and be alone for a few hours.

Probably the moment I will remember the most from this morning was my dermatologist noticing I was not my usual ebullient self. I was having a challenging time not crying – I have been straddling the line between being so-so and falling into a funk again – and she gently asked if I was ok, if I wanted to talk to her about what was going on – if it was something she might help me with.

My responses were head shakes, couldn’t quite speak yet, and I felt cared for by her even on a morning I knew she was extra busy.

That felt nurturing and good.

Maybe I should have asked for a gift certificate to a luxury hotel and a house cleaning service for a month so during the chemo treatments I wouldn’t have to worry about housework? J

The simple act of writing about it is making me feel refreshed a bit. I was able to dress my bitmoji in a cute holiday outfit. I watched some of my live streaming friends do their thing. I am now looking at “how to draw a bridge” instructions.

I am not falling into a black hole, I am stepping into the light at my pace. It is slow but not too slow.

I’m starting to look forward to the stories I will collect and tell about today in the future.

I found a stirring blog post from five years ago I really enjoyed discovering from when I had a diagnoses that included melanoma.

Here it is:

“Words. They can do for the heart what light can for a field.”

Juan de la Cruz

Words have always been my anchor art. I can always return to them. They always wait for me to show up. And the rest of the world? Is waiting for them.

So here I am, offering my words up – sure that for someone out there this is exactly what they needed to hear. For that, I am grateful.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

 To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

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Blue Lined Conversations: Writing from This/That… Ten Years Later.

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Over the many years I have used writing practice as a way of life I have found sometimes I need different methods to get deeper, to tune into that soul-voice asking me to listen more carefully.

Today I found this writing from more than ten years ago. I wanted to share with you about the “Infinite Loop de Loop” so I searched my old blog for content and this is one of the pieces I found.

it is a suggestion from Natalie Goldberg, where we write back and forth from two sides of a the same statement.

In our #5for5BrainDump we will write, “I give…. ” and “I don’t give” as well as, “I receive… I don’t receive.”

On this day in February 2007 I wrote from “I am…” and “I am not…” The process took two separate writing sessions and the result was an ongoing deluge of a-ha’s, bubbling up everywhere I look.

The Julie of 2017 had forgotten every moment and now scooped up even more insights.

Here is where it began:

I am hopeful. Well, _begrudgingly_.

I am pondering conditionalism – is that a word? What I mean is I am contemplating my own experience of loving with conditions attached.

I am not so pleased with the discomfort I feel when I surround myself with past happenings of “If you ________, then I will show you love. If you don’t _________ , I will withhold love.”

This is so contrary to my being – and I am open to the discoveries the divine is requesting I make.

I am different.

I am not ordinary. Convention? Pah. I am glad the Dixie Chicks won a lot of awards last night. I am not used to having people be mad at me, so the last few days of people seeming to be mad at me has made me WAYYYY uncomfortable… and again, there are discoveries to be made and growth to happen, all of which is just right.

I am frustrated as I witness stupid stuff causing my nerves to fray (as I am allowing it to do, not that stupid stuff ‘causes it, it is my opinion that causes it so sayeth Epictetus… nothing like ancient Greeks showing up in my 43 things meanderings) I am letting it go now.

I am not prone to tantrums but maybe just maybe if I gave myself space to have one… oh, I don’t know.

I am willing to grow.

I am not amused by meanness and sarcasm. No wonder I don’t fit in with a lot of people.

I am tuned into Sam today. I am so glad, because he seems to be feeling so much better – relief.

I am not concerned about tomorrow.

I am Julie.

I am not anyone else.

I am.

Who are you?

(Something was waiting in the conclusion of the writing earlier today… that something asked…)

Who are you? So I answered my writing –

I am a fledgling collector of crystal doorknobs – these objects of fear, of wonder, of curiosity, of bewilderment.

I close my eyes to feel with, with the palm of my hand and my fingers. An iced over pond, with a new dusting of snow that stands clear of footprints until I walk across it.

The doorknob has eight perfectly symmetrical indentations – eight, the infinite, standing up. The doorknob – held, turned, let go. Grabbed, tugged on, pushed on, always so momentary.

The doorknob that is never really held,

So I hold the doorknob and sob, feeling like we have this in common.

My fingers wrap around its slick exterior and my palm grips it fully. My cheek rests against it. I wonder for a moment if the little Julie’s cheek ever grazed the old bedroom crystal doorknob, the one that seemed to mock my middle-of-the-night, eight-year-old spiritual musings we assume eight-year-olds don’t muse.

Constance-the-Cat doesn’t quite know what to do. She grazes me until she senses I am ok. The wind chime sings its approval of the moment to which it is witness.

I kiss the doorknob and nuzzle it from the other side.

My smallest finger notices an imperfection inside, a place where a tool pushed too hard and scarred the doorknob. Its scarring makes me delight in the doorknob even more.

Why?

Connection.

We are all scarred. Doorknobs, cats named Constance, outdoor-living-so-weathered-wooden-desks, women named Julie. You. We can choose to bear scars – with dignity, grace and wonder. We can choose to bare scars with vulnerability, unfamiliar to most, yet desired – in truth – by all.

I traced the scar on the doorknob and traced my own scars with a sacred hush… alighting gently from my fingertips directly into my heart.

I look deeply into the soul of the doorknob and see the core, the artistic beginnings, the casings and the laser-like narrowing into oneness as the doorknob offers itself into a lifetime of service only to be passed off as salvage until….

Until one conversation lead to one spark which lead to one man walking through another door to pick the just-right crystal doorknob that is now nestled in my hand in its own, unmoving stand… placed on the outdoor desk of this wildly passionate writer, relentlessly following her divine call and allowing the observations to flow….

And the loop of infinity swoops up and down and back and around, once again….

Who are you?

 

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Oh, to Be Mysterious: a 5 Minute Writing Session Earned By Decluttering

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Have you ever seen the movie, “West Side Story?”

There is a scene when Tony is singing about a girl named Maria and he is so entranced with her he has to inexplicably brake into song. Well, I know how Tony feels because I found a word to write about today that was so powerful I made myself declutter before I used up all my energy lusting after a…. word. I know it sounds strange.

Here I was investigating cures for writer’s block when I was hit by a words so strongly it nearly knocked me off my feet. Insert “Sibylline” for Maria and you’ll get how I feel. And after the clip are the words I wrote after a garage decluttering session.

Your tip? Be open to a word that will make YOU want to sing. And then sing. Or borrow this tune from West Side Story and sing along.

I’m investigating Wrier’s Block today: its causes and more importantly its cures.

I was all tangled up in other stuff rather than writing when this new word flew off twitter and dove headlong into my heart: sibylline. It means mysterious.

I saw the word and it was instant lust. Originally I called it love, but no. To be truthful it was all about lust for who I wish I could be and never was.

The guilty pleasure wished for word: sibylline.

I was under its spell. Oh, to be mysterious. How I would love to be mystery personified.

I closest I could claim is when a suitor (does anyone use that word anymore, even in 1983 when it happened) described me as an enigma.

The man in question happened to be 19 but if anyone was mysterious it was he. After all, he is the one who went on to be an internationally known business man. I’m the one who became a mother-of-three in Bakersfield listening to music that is supposed to keep her focused on writing and is now more than slightly mortified to be writing in the third person.

If you put this now internationally well-known business man’s Facebook photo and my Facebook photo side-by-side he would hands on get more votes for sibylline.

I’m not sure what adjective people would use by my smiley face selfie taken by the river last Sunday morning but certainly it wouldn’t be the longed for sibylline.

I’ve always been an “open book” and “heart on the sleeve” sort of person who could have won Girl Scout badges for Transparency if there was such a thing probably because I wanted people to engage me in deep conversation even as a middle-school-aged-child.
If I were more sibylline, people with glasses in really cool frames would speak to me and assume I had a wide vocabulary and varied interests and expertise in random subjects.

When I think about it a moment, I do have varied interests and expertise in random subjects and it sort of bothers me when people can’t recognize this immediately.

Sibylline: teach me how to express your presence in my life.

A very excited aspect of my life, probably a freshman in college me or a before-fifth-grade-me leaped to the forefront of my brain and quipped, “I know, a poem! Write a poem with the writer’s voice being named Sibylline!” she takes a pause, “or get a new cat and name her Sibylline, or write a character with a cat named Sibylline!”

The headset which is playing a binaural beats playlist in my mind gets to the part that sounds like the El in Chicago during the Risky Business sound track and I realize my timer has gone off and I have effectively used up the writing credit I earned while cleaning the clutter in my garage.

Time for me to go back to being perfectly ordinary and decidedly anti-sibylline. For now, anyway.

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