Julie Unplugged

The Art of Letting Go

by Julie Jordan Scott

How often have you looked into someone's eyes and said or thought or wish you had admitted, “I don’t want to let you go”?

 

I feel this way each time I prepare to exhibit art publicly. It probably wouldn't make gallery owners happy to know I hesitate and imbue my art with a secret "I hope no one buys you" energy.

 

Choosing art for the annual Burn the Witch art show is always something that goes beyond just choosing art for an art show. Each year, I choose a theme – or it might

be more accurate to say a theme chooses to traipse alongside me as I live my life and create my art.

 

I write an artist statement based on my year and the art within that year, without picking specific pieces. This year’s theme was Stillbirth. You may find this an

odd theme and rather out-dated, as I experienced stillbirth almost twenty years ago.

 

In this case, it is using Stillbirth as a metaphor: the concept of getting inches from realizing a dream and then something happens and that dream disappears or

is just beyond that fingertip grasp and no matter how much you try or wish or pray or attempt to finagle just a smidge more from divinity, nothing happens.

 

This afternoon I was choosing the specific pieces I will show there and I held one to my chest, tears threatening.

 

“I don’t want to let you go,” I told it, as if it could hear. As if it could feel.

 

That particular painting is a layered painting.

 

Let me try to explain what I mean by “layered painting.”

 

I sometimes have more paintings and photos than I have frames so I scrounge for frames. For this particular watercolor, I had a framed photo and when

I went to swap out the photo for the painting, I decided to keep the photo there, underneath the painting - invisible visually to the person looking at the painting yet

energetically very present.

 

Looking at the emotions of the watercolor itself, it was as if it was requesting I pair them, together.

 

I am not a trained artist and I don’t pretend to be a master at the craft by any means. I play with the craft. I normally paint when language can’t cut it for me anymore.

 

It used to frustrate me in those moments, as a writer, when I exhausted my means for communication.

 

Now I take those moments as a call to haul out the brushes  and try to say what I want to say with color, with lines and curves and emotional images. On my

multi-media pieces especially I add texture. In one of my pieces in this years show, I use a very surprising medium which again, completely fits with my theme of stillbirth , this theme which chose me which I would have never chosen for myself.

 

Even in writing these words in this moment, I am procrastinating on delivery of my art.

 

I don’t want to let that “baby” go, though the best thing in the world would be for it to bless the others who not only see the paint, but feel the energy both within and

underneath the paint.

 

LATER:

 

I arrived at the Burn the Witch drop on my way to rehearsal for How I Learned to Drive at the Empty Space. Everything was prepared, labeled, in order, paperwork complete, so it was just a matter of bringing my art, putting it on a table, checking

in with Nyoka to give her my paperwork and leave.

 

I saw a friend who sat at a large table with enormous canvases straddling at least one if not more tabletops and I chirped, “Hi!” as I walked to an empty tabletop.

 

“Oh, it’s you,” she said, her voice melancholy not because of the sight of my face underneath an unfamiliar purple hat but because she seemed overwhelmed with whatever the task was she was completing.

 

I separated my frames, changing them from a side-by-side family unit and took one last look.  The next time I see them, they would be separated in this cavernous space by ther canvases, other paper, other collages, assemblages and sculptures.

 

I stood at the table, fingers softly touching the images. “My babies,” I whispered, prayer-like, seeing them there in all their vibrant color and intriguing textures.

 

I knew I couldn’t linger because, as is the norm lately, my calendar is dense with activities. I took one final ook before meeting with Nyoka to hand her my paperwork, collect a hug, and trust my art would speak in whispers and shouts to people who come to see all the art that makes up this year’s Burn the Witch All

Women’s Art Show.

 

How often have you looked into someone's eyes and said or thought or wish you had admitted, “I don’t want to let you go”? 

 

© 2009

 

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Tonight Tasted Like...

Tonight tasted like a Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate bar.

 

 

It just so happens that this is one of my favorite candy bars out there – right amidst the more common Three Musketeers and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, you will find a deep longing for dark, bittersweet, heartful chocolate found in its dark red, fading to brown paper wrapper.

 

I sat in the theatre booth - the place where the lights are controlled -  watching the final performance of “King Lear” in the twenty fifth and final season of The Kern Shakespeare Festival when it came to me. This night tastes bittersweet. Delicious, mouth watering yet also has a sad, “Is this really it?” quality to it.

 

There was a party tonight and a get together involving ice cream, but I elected to come home, write and drink what I discovered is a too-warm-for-my-taste bottle of Samuel Adams.

 

I am experiencing an intriguing moment of my life.

 

I cleared some space for myself to float along, mindfully, doing a suspended-in-the-air-relationship-backstroke. I have been delightfully detached for a while now. It is surreal, to a certain extent, how strange and yet how just-right that feels.

 

I feel sort of how the bread crumbs thrown to birds must feel. No birds in view for miles around and suddenly, bread gets thrown and words get out and birds fly in for a closer view and to nosh a while.

 

My invitations have been so plentiful these days, I have to be careful not to over commit myself, which has always been problematic for me because I so enjoy people. Yet on a Friday or Saturday night I nod off to peaceful, satisfied sleep and wake up with text message invitations and missed phone calls, I turn my phone off to spend some time in quiet and when I turn it back on, it vibrates in anticipation of me.

 

This is more than a bit surreal.

 

Why didn’t this happen when I was in my early twenties? Why is this waiting for now?

 

I wrote the opening sentence of these rambling thoughts on my facebook and people are responding. Noshing at my words, my inquiry, my different way to explain a night in flavor rather than sight or travelogue.

 

Tonight tasted like a Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate bar. What does your day/did your day taste like?

 

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What Heaven Feels Like

I leaned my head back and laughter gurgled up from my center, almost reminiscent of a water fountain – rising and falling, rising and falling. I had no idea it would feel this way.

 

It was a week of first times, something which never ceases to delight me.

 

I didn’t know this particular “first” was going to happen, I just knew I would have a grand time exploring and taking photos with my friend and the man I call my “personal photographer,” Todd Powers.

 

We had a context – I needed new headshots for the fourth Burn the Witch all women’s art show – and I knew I wanted sunset shots, outdoors somewhere. Off we went to a place Todd recommended. “A cool burned out house,” he told me.

 

Some people wouldn’t put those words together and find them inspiring yet Todd and I have worked together enough to know we would be able to create something beyond the ordinary.

 

The sunlight was fading and we had taken a majority of our photos when we walked to our second destination.  It was still except for the crunch of our footsteps.

 

“You know what I have to do, don’t you?” I said to Todd.

 

He lowered an eye brow, not knowing for sure what I had to do.

 

“I have to lie down.”

 

I lowered my pink, lacey dress wearing self onto the most surprising surface and rested my head on a makeshift pillow. That is when the laughter started. I kicked off the shoes which had been protecting my feet from an assortment of stones and I stopped pretending I had control over anything, least of which was control over my glee at lying down on this surprising “bed”.

 

When we were back in the car, driving towards home, Todd said, “You know, you are one of the people I never have to worry about when I take your pictures. I know you will come up with cool stuff.”

 

The thing is, I am not thinking about what would make a cool photo, I am simply following my heart and soul into the moment. From that, interesting images rise to the surface. Sometimes those images rise within gurgles of laughter – and sometimes, like last year, they rise with salty tears, right on the edge of my eye lids.

 

It is the same with my painting and my collaging and my photography. It is the same with my writing, my poetry, my stage performance.

 

 

When my spirit takes the reins from my intellect is when the most vibrant experiences occur. Surprising combinations which my intellect wouldn’t fathom collide and harmonize and collaborate.

 

It is the same with YOUR writing. YOUR art. YOUR conversations.

 

When you intentionally take the reins from whatever aspect of you claims dominance and hand it over to the quieter side of yourself, watch out. Laughter will more than likely gurgle up when you are not expecting it to gurgle up.

 

On that same drive home I picked stones and sticks from my lace dress. When we got back to the house, Jen picked another stone from my dress and I felt the need to wash my feet before we continued with the indoor portion of our photo shoot.

 

We giggled more. My face would not shift from the smiling mode.

 

In writing, I discovered something else.

 

This must be what heaven feels like.

 

© 2009

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"What is it?" Again

I remember walking into Jumbo Donuts on Oswell drive, I was desperately seeking a Sugar Twist. It was the first time I was brave enough to look at the television screen. It was surreal, what I saw. Until that point, I wasn’t willing to look as if not looking made it not real.

 

I try to remember when the phone calls started flooding in. I didn’t have a cell phone then, so they came through my kitchen wall phone, one after another. Bianca was still Bianca then, she was still home but trying to get to Orlando for her job at Disneyworld and an entirely different life, though I didn’t know it at the time.

 

Sam was a baby, transferring from an older the shoulder baby to a nestling on the hip baby. I was relatively decent, used to being a Mom-on-my-own. I saved my falling apart for later.

 

Ken reached us first as I was getting Katherine ready for school. “Did you see what happened at the trade center?” he asked. “Is there a trade center in L.A?” I countered.

 

It was in New York. THE world trade center. He said something about a tower. I didn’t understand him. I hung up. The phone rang again, this time from Missouri, frantic voiced Jeff, asking if I had taken Katherine to school yet. “Stay inside,” he said. “Don’t go outside.”

 

Everyone I saw, heard, or smelled was panicked.  My usually calm world buzzed with fear. “What is it?” Katherine asked. Her question became my writing prompt when I finally sat down late that night to untangle my thoughts and feelings. What I wrote from her question became a part of a collection of stories that hit the New York Times best seller list.

 

I answered her with love and consciousness. “Some people want us to be afraid, but we will not do what they want us to do. We will have courage. We will know love.”

 

I took Katherine to school that day, somehow negotiated through the maze of confusion and made it home again. I took my younger children to the playground later, not wanting to be home when Katherine wasn’t there. I kept her with me for the rest of the week. I didn’t want to be apart from my children.

 

The silence from the sky in the days after is a sound I will hear as long as I have memory.

 

How can it be eight years ago?

 

There are people who would rather we forget.

 

I choose, instead, to remember for it is in the memories the love continues to live and become a part of the present.

 

"Frankly, It's Not Engaging"

I sat as if tied to my chair, watching as the Toyota truck pulled away.  I was motionless except for my hand which made its presence known to me from the corner of my eye. My hand was still except for slight bending of my fingers which was an attempt at some semblance of a wave.

 

I am having a difficult time putting into words what this felt like.

 

I could say “It felt bad” but that would tell you nothing. I am in the midst of reading Robert Bly’s book, Poems of Two-Fold Consciousness. In it, he describes this sort of labeling as a sign of the average writer’s unwillingness to be present and experience moments fully. Those of us who are communicators and use words as our medium need to show our readers more.

 

In my life work as a writing teacher, my students will tell you when I hear them respond to other’s writing with “I liked it” or “It was funny” my face turns slightly yellow and if they look closely, they can see the hair on my arms stand at attention. My lips purse and tighten around my jaw.

 

“I liked it” doesn’t communicate with the reader. “What was effective in the writing?” I will ask, teasing out more details or I may follow up with “What particular word combinations impacted you the most?”

 

This morning, alone, I settled back into my writing chair. I peered into the monitor in front of me and wrote myself back into the moment.

 

My hand, raised and motionless hung in the air. It was the punctuation mark at the end of a time of togetherness with my friend, David, at my favorite Bakersfield coffee house: Dagny’s. Visits with David are few and far between and in my estimation are never long enough.

 

My hand hung there, comma-like, begging the conversation to continue yet knowing some conversations will remain as fragments until I scoop them up on my own and allow them to become monologues in my soul development.

 

This choice works well. When I move in that direction, I recognize maybe it was meant to be a soul monologue from my heart to the page and then out to the world. It doesn’t mean on a certain level I would rather have the conversation continue, it means I have made whatever shows up to be the just right thing.

 

Settling back into that moment with my hand hanging in the air, it was as if the movement in my hand was praying, “let this be a comma between this conversation and another” yet I always know that next conversation may not appear. I choose, each time, to be grounded in the fact that whether or not that next conversation happens, I will be fine. I will be just right. I will continue to do what I have always done: put one foot in front of the other and move my pencil across the page.

 

It felt like hours as I sat there across from his now empty chair, breathing, quietly, motionless, my eyes smarting from tears sitting inside my eyelids.

 

These words say so much more than “It felt bad”, don’t they?

Reeve Lindbergh wrote, “(My mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh) taught us that any experience worth living through was worth writing about, but beyond this she made us feel that the act of writing about it significantly affected the experience itself. I did not know whether writing enhanced an event, transforming it into something more important than it would have been had it gone unrecorded, or whether simply writing made it more real, like the testimony of an observant bystander who can confirm, “Yes, something has indeed happened here. I am a witness. This is what I saw.”

I didn’t see “bad” I saw my hand, as a comma, and as I followed that imagery through my writing, had an “a-ha” what my hand wanted me to know.

I am guessing there is a message from my hand to you here as well.

This isn’t only for writers – this includes conversations, inner self-conversations, email writing, comments on facebook – everyplace you go you may communicate with people more meaningfully and discover insights that are begging to be seen so that your life may be improved.

My friend Coryn sent me a text message, asking how my visit with David went. I texted her back, saying “It was eye-opening, it was sacred, it was orange, it was too short, it made me laugh.”

You might say, “What do you mean, it was orange?”

Therein lies my point. The orange initiates more conversation, more connection, more interaction, more discovery.

I wish more of my visits were orange or purple or slightly overcast or covered with drizzle.

It says so much more than, “It was fine.” You might think of fine in this way: “Frankly, it’s not engaging.”

Today if someone asks you, “How was your day?” or “How is your daughter, Mabel?” or “How was work?” don’t respond to “fine” or “good” or “horrid” because those are not engaging words, those are not words that invite a motionless comma in the air. 

Instead, respond with descriptive words, even if you say, “It was Orange.”

I would rather have daily aching eye lids from the sweetness of stinging tears than a life tempered with dry-eyed mediocrity.

Activate Your Passion.

 = = =

 You may be saying "This is all well and good in the speaking, but I have no idea how to impliment this in my writing or my speaking or my living."

THis is one of the reasons I create my writing programs - to address soul change through communication.

Writing changes lives, lives are changed with writing - any form of writing. My two upcoming programs are examples of that - If you feel a tug from what you just read - you owe it to yourself to at least click on the links and consider joining us.. or just go ahead and register.

It would be an honor to work with you.

Preparing for the Writing Harvest - Week Long Writing Intensive Program:
begins this Monday, September 14.

http://bit.ly/xi9LB

Women's Autumn Writing Circle - begins September 23.

http://bit.ly/autumnwritingcircle

© 2009 – Julie Jordan Scott

 

 

 

 

 

Third Day, Silent

I think the invitation came from a memoir writing friend but I can’t say for sure. I do know this: yesterday I was at the computer for a few moments when I saw the reminder, “Today is the day for a special brand of writing marathon on twitter.com!”

 

Is there anyone who doesn’t know what twitter.com is anymore?

 

It is a website that asks and has members answer the perpetual question of “what are you doing?” in 140 (or fewer) characters.

 

What it has become is something much different.

 

Primarily I use twitter to keep in touch with people and practice my creativity. Yesterday’s writing marathon was a perfect example of stretching into the latter.

 

We were to tell stories – very, very short stories, using the Twitter format.

 

I loved the concept. How would I be able to tell complete stories in such a short context? It reminded me of one of my favorite poetry forms, haiku – or Alan Ginsberg’s take on short forms such as Haiku poetry, the American Sentence.

 

Brevity and specificity are two powerhouse practices in any writer’s notebook. If a writer is able to train herself to think concisely, she will find satisfaction and hold a reader’s interest. However one wants to name it, the challenge is here – it doesn’t matter whether or not you use twitter as your playground.

 

In the small time frame I had to write yesterday, here is what I came up with in 140 (or fewer characters) times 8. Not many words, not much space and yet – a lot of vivid writing without lowering myself to use abbreviations or letters in place of real words.

 

Tweet One: It started on a dark, gloomy January night, long, long ago. More accurate would be to say it started the previous October.

 

These days life is populated with people like my kids, Rilke & odd goals focused on words like kyrielle + composition books.

 

Inaccuracies engage me more than straight lines, so to at the end it may be dark, mottled, gloomy, gleeful. Definitely not boring.

 

My heart pounds, recognizing read through for what’s next will be here in four hours. Need to squeeze lots in before the magic time.

 

Coldest moments froze me shut. Thawing out brought rewards beyond breath's words.

 

Before I step away from the computer, I pause to compliment a beloved friend. Now, I step back into the rest of my life.

 

Returning, hours later, to synopsize the day and the 140 (or fewer) character stories I wrote:

 

Final Tweet: Third day silent. With new distractions occupying me, I turn away and pull the drapes closed once again. I peer into darkness.

 

I did move my entries around, a form of editing, simply so they told what I felt was a better version of the story. The first tweet and the final tweet are in tact as they were sent to the world, first and last.

 

I share my words with you here as a source of inspiration – a source of “hey if Julie can smoosh meaning into 140 (or fewer) characters, I can, too.”

 

Why not try it, right now?

 

I will try it along with you in a bare bones way, with only a couple chances to get it “just right”.

 

Our question for play: “What have you done today?”

 

I sat on my porch, drinking coffee and writing while Sam waited for his bus.

 

Ask yourself the question: How might I make that more interesting, if I wanted to make it more interesting?

 

My pencil moved across the notebook page in the early rays of dawn. Samuel’s voice was like spilled coffee across my inspiration. (129 characters)

 

Ewwww, I say to myself. I started off well but “early rays of dawn” sounds like something a soap opera poet might say. I think I will keep “Samuel’s voice was like spilled coffee” but no, let go of “across my inspiration”.

 

My pencil moved across the notebook page, casting shadows as it spoke. Samuel’s spilled coffee voice pushed my arm off the desk. (128 characters)

 

Better, but not perfect. Tweetable. It is definitely tweetable and worthy of putting into my “unpolished gems” file for further word crafting.

Are you feeling remotely inspired?

 

I can guarantee you something. If you try this on, playfully answer the question asked and make a couple drafts of your response, you will improve your writing almost immediately.

 

Remember what I wrote a moment ago?

 

Brevity and specificity are two powerhouse practices in any writer’s notebook.

 

What will it hurt to try?

 

Toss out the banal, the clichéd, the words you use way too often. Even throw away the “c” as in “I c” for “I see” and “prolly” for “probably” and all those other Internet Shortcuts.

 

Playfully and without brain contortions, see what you are able to pack into a small slice of word pie, or word cake if that is what you prefer.

 

Put those words into your mouth and taste them. Use that taste to describe them again. It may make you laugh. It may bring tears to your eyes. It may make you shrug and say “So what”.

 

If it does that, bring the “So what” to life in your words.

 

“What have you done today?”

 

And now, you.

 

 

© 2009

Julie Jordan Scott

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How to Engage the Insult (Rather than be enraged by it.)

I spent the better part of the day yesterday processing an unintentional insult given to me.

 

It was a precious gift in retrospect, by a friend of mine I have come to believe considers herself to be in competition with every other woman who shares her passion for words.

It is strange when I dissect the conversation and the unspoken words between us, that I never noticed this before now.

 

I am the antithesis of perpetual competition. I have been in competitive recovery for so long – especially when it relates to people I love – I don’t normally think of competition as an option.

 

My brothers and sisters may tease me about this when I see them in October. “No teams, no sides, no points, no winners or losers!” I would assert before we started playing any sort of sports activity. Looking back, my primary concern at this point was simple. I didn’t want to cost my team a loss. My confidence in myself as an athletic competitor was never high, so I just opted out. Or I tried to opt out.

 

In the world outside of family and athletics, I chose to aim towards personal excellence instead. Icontinue to choose not to measure my accomplishment in relationship with anyone else. Instead, I enjoy my process and I enjoy my outcomes, even when they are listening to internal conversations, trying to get to the root of what is up rather than get tangled up in what I made whatever happened mean.

 

I could have gone down the, “Wow, I must not be nearly as talented as I have been told I am in the past” or “I don’t fit in” or “People like me but my work and my art are in the minor leagues compared to everyone else.”

 

I didn’t go there except for checking in with the opinions as they walked past me in thought.

Muriel Rukeyser said, “Breathe-in experience, breathe-out poetry.”

Rather than let myself get obsessively angry or hurt or vengeful, I sat with the experience.

 

Throughout the day yesterday, I wore my “What is up with that?” beret. I listened to the words that were said in my internal ear, over and over and over without chasing them or feeling angry or hurt or lamenting them, I simply listened and finally allowed myself the space and the experience of being hurt, I took the time to be with the years of feeling similar hurts and surprisingly enough, the vault wasn’t as full as I had thought it might be.

 

I allowed myself the space to not answer the phone when one of the participants in the conversation about me, when I was absent, called me. Perhaps she read between the lines of something I wrote and wanted to stoke the fire.  Maybe she simply wanted to offer comfort. In my choice to not answer her call, to not speak to her until my experience was fully breathed-in-and-out, I also gave her the privilege of her own experience.

 

It also gave me room to discover for myself whether or not there was truth in what her assessment was of me. I was prepared to see “what she says is right on.” One aspect of what she said is right on – I am not the same as the others.

 

I am decidedly different. I see that as strength rather than a detriment.

 

In rehearsing my words, I discovered they evoke exactly what she asked me to evoke. Perhaps her insult was actually meant as a method to prompt me into my personal best. I won’t ever know unless I choose to breathe in the experience of discovering more, of asking without attachment, “Did you mean to say what I thought you said or was that just me making meaning out of something which wasn’t there?” Followed with a quietly detached “I was wondering what was up with that.”

 

 What is in this for you?

1. Remember: throughout your day wear your “What is
up with that?” beret.

2. Discern what meaning you are adding to the
facts of what happened. Shed the meaning you are
adding - simply let it walk past you like the
mean girls in the junior high school hallway.
You know they will be there and you may choose
whether or not to pay attention to them.

3. Allow yourself to revel in your process. Continue
to breathe in experience so that you may breathe
out creativity and understanding for yourself
and others.

 

 © 2009
Julie Jordan Scott

 

 

 

Essays like this are published in Daily Passion Activator, Julie's long running ezine which is delivered directly into your email box - Why not Subscribe today? It's free.

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