Julie Unplugged

Bakersfield VDay Writing Workshop Focuses on Bringing Personal Power into the Stories We Tell

 

It happens almost every time I hang out with friends. We begin to tell stories about “the time when….” and some of us tell stories more often than others.

 

Our stories begin taking different shapes and textures depending upon who is gathered in the story telling circle. More often than not, you wouldn’t tell the same story to a circle of your Mom’s bridge club as you would the old friends gathered at your tenth high school reunion.

 

There was a time when stories focused on words like “Codependence” when books bearing such words ruled the best seller lists.   People thrived on telling “Woe is me victim stories” which luckily became old after a while, but unfortunately in the swinging pendulum of life, all of a sudden it was somehow wrong to tell stories of pain. That same group who loved the experience of connecting over sadness due to sibling rivalry or mean girl elementary school behavior found the “If you say anything that makes you feel sadness, you will only bring more sadness into your life, so fake it and pretend and sweet talk yourself into ‘happy talk’” which wasn’t all that great, either.

 

Someplace other than these extremes is the place where we allow ourselves to be (choose the word that fits for you) authentic or transparent or honest or willing to be raw, pure, just-as-we-are rather than “who we think we are supposed to be in the first place”. 

 

It is a unique energy which arrives when we step up and share our  stories from this different space: all of a sudden our world opens up in a new way.

 

When we peel away the “can you believe what so-and-so did to me?” and replace it with, “This happened and that happened and as a result, I felt this and did that and… oh, you felt that too?” connections are found and forged and understanding and compassion have room to roam.

 

In the Vday Writing Workshop taking place tomorrow, Saturday afternoon, February 27, in Bakersfield, we will be exploring this new, empowering place to write and live. This isn’t a conventional writing workshop, it is more like a human experience workshop where we use writing as a tool, an instrument, a method of understanding ourselves and these stories we have told or have heard or that have become the context for every choice we have made in our lives thus far.

 

If you are a fiction writer, you will gain insights into yourself and characters.

 

If you are a poet, you will create word images to put into poetry.

 

If you are a journal writer or blogger, you will find different directions to explore.

 

If you are a student, you will learn to engage with words differently – and perhaps find your way to better writing grades as a result.

 

You will go home with new tools, techniques and ideas.

 

You will go home with more confidence, some new friends, and a renewed sense of purpose.

 

You will be supporting an International Movement to End Violence against women and girls as well as the Alliance Against Family Violence.

 

For more details about the Writing Workshop, please visit this link -– and be  sure to call to preregister so that a space may be saved for you.

Julie Jordan Scott has been leading writing workshops for students across North America, Europe and Australia since 1999. A Recipient of the Coach of the Year Award for the Life on Purpose Institute in 2004, Julie’s writing has appeared in magazines, newspapers and greeting cards worldwide as well as in poetry anthologies and Chicken Soup for the Soul of America.  She has been publishing Daily Passion Activator since 2001 and somehow manages to be active in the Bakersfield Arts Community while raising three children. She is best known in Bakersfield for her work in Theater and Poetry.

#FridayFlash - A Little Bit of "Nothing" Fiction

Preface: This is my first attempt at Flash Friday and it is my first shot at writing any sort of fiction in years. I figure it is a good writing exercise and the best non-fiction writing should incorporate elements of fiction writing. I tell my students that, anyway. So – I noticed the #flashfriday on Twitter and sought a prompt, which I found at WriteAnything though I realize many writers get their inspiration from different sources. I get it more clearly now and next week, I may revert to Non-Fiction or stick with this story. I found myself liking Claire and Laura, even with so few words.

 

Oh – my friend, Thom, from 3WW said the goal is around 1000 words but the Write Anything site gave a timed writing suggestion. Five minutes netted me just under 320 words and for now, I’ll stick with that. The first line of the writing sample was the writing prompt.

Thank you for visiting – and this preface should make up for the word count for my fiction writing! Happy Friday!

 

Nothing

 

The bag was empty except for a smudged, slip of paper which said, “Sorry.”

 

Laura, turned the paper over in her hand, looking for some sort of “just kidding” scribed on the other side. The dread didn’t begin to hit until later.

 

Here she was, alone, with her children, almost two thousand miles from home and a thousand miles from her destination. Now, thanks to whomever this jokester was, her wallet was nowhere to be seen, her valuables, gone.

 

Unless, ofcourse,  you count her children as valuables. They were at the swimming pool. She thought she could hear them splashing over the sound of her heart pounding.

 

“What is it, Mom?” Claire asked as she walked into the small hotel room. She was used to her Mom having strange creative outbursts at unexpected times so she thought holding an empty bag, a piece of paper and a perplexed look might lead to her Mom’s next “thing.”

 

She didn’t get worried until her question was met with silence.

 

“Mom?”

 

“Nothing.” Laura said, truthfully, followed by more silence.  She took a deep breath before she continued. “Nothing. I’ll…. Ahhh… figure it out. Are the other kids still at the pool?”

 

Claire nodded in a solemn, Claire-esque way.

 

Laura continued to talk, somehow finding comfort in her voice, which reminded her so much of her mother’s voice. “I’ll get my suit on and be right out.”

 

She could not let Claire see her cry. She could not break down in front of the kids. She could not let them not believe in her. They had been through enough together as a family and she was going to figure out a way to solve this…

 

“Nothing, Mom?” She heard over her left shoulder. Claire had noticed the empty bag.

 

“Nothing?”

 

“Well, honey,” Laura started, searching for words that would not frighten her eldest, ultra-responsible daughter. “Someone got into the room and left with the laptop, my wallet, my ATM card and credit cards. I think they may have gotten my cell, too.

 

“They did leave this.”

 

She handed the now-frowning Claire the smudged, yellow paper.

 

“Sorry?” Claire said, sounding not unlike a frog whose croak has deflated. “Sorry?”

 

They sought solace in each other’s eyes but what they found were tears. “Nothing,” They whispered, together.

 

 

From Special Needs Sibling to Special Needs Mommy and Back Again

I forget, sometimes, those things that I didn’t really want to discover in the first place.

 

Sometimes I can go weeks without remembering Samuel is on the autistic spectrum and with that, is less mature than my other children were at the same age. The rule of thumb is that as an eight-year-old, Samuel has the emotional maturity of a five-year-old.

 

This has always been tough for him because he is so tall and people usually guess he is much older than his age. At times I vacillate between, “Be the same with him as I was with the girls” or “Make exceptions because of his uniqueness” or sometimes I just throw my hands in the air and give up momentarily.

 

I like to think I treat all my children uniquely, but when I step back I realize my expectations have been different for Samuel when I am staunchly in the “but he is on the spectrum” camp. He has matured so much over the past few years, it is challenging when he suddenly is wracked with anxiety and stops sleeping well or starts perseverating on one topic again or insists in his routines when I don’t have the time for them.

 

Then I remember how I am different from moment to moment. I remember how some days I am strong and unstoppable and other days, I need to be cuddled and held and the slightest compliment or the slightest critique can set me off.

 

I face my own mothering quandaries from the perspective of being a “Special Needs Sibling” myself. It is not something I would have put on my “experiences I want my children to have” order form. It isn’t that it was a bad thing on my childhood “to-do” list, it just is known to have a different group of trials than going to the beach or Disneyland or getting braces or glasses or going to Girl Scout camp.

 

The past two months have been dense with creative activity and while I love it, I also know I am exhausted and the need for a break has become something I know in both my bones and my veins.  I have been looking forward to my upcoming trip to Tucson with the hunger of a ravenous baby, looking for her Mama’s spoon.

 

As the mother of a child on the spectrum, I also know I need to prepare Samuel for my absence. I need to be sure his increased anxiety doesn’t push him over the top and I need to prepare everyone who is involved in his care and education know I will be gone and what that might mean for him behaviorally.

 

It seems like so much, but on the flip side, I have to know that being intentional on this level will serve each and all of us and that when I return from Tucson, I will be refreshed and come back to a mostly smiling child versus a mostly angry child.

 

I wonder how my mother did it, leaving her son – my brother, John – behind. How did she leave her precious baby with Down’s Syndrome? I remember those few times she left us in the care of a usually older woman baby sitter who would stay in our house. One of them, I remember, was Mrs. Garrity. I had extreme separation anxiety until I was a teen, so these trips have little in my memory banks.

 

I mostly remember anxious waiting followed by unbelievably relieved reunions.

 

Looking back, I understand how badly my mother needed those rare moments away, usually accompanying my father on his business trips where she could luxuriate in hotel rooms and lounge by a poolside of a Holiday Inn or Howard Johnson hotel – nothing fancy but quiet and alone.

 

I am going to Tucson to see my eldest daughter, Katherine, perform with the Western Regional Honor Choir. She is graduating in June and then is off to Massachusetts. Scant moments basking only in her light are important to me. I don’t want to share these moments with her younger siblings: I want them to be hers and hers alone. I can check in with Katherine when I am in Tucson, let her know I am close but not hovering close, not distractingly close.

 

She will experience her time of intense musical learning and know I am there, to see her end result, her deep love of music and performance.

 

I purposefully am not chaperoning her trip so I can retreat in a city I do not know but that has a certain funky appeal to me. I am arriving in the wee hours of Thursday morning by Amtrak and my mother is joining me on Friday afternoon. It will be just enough alone time before she arrives.

 

Then she and I can explore Tucson a bit – I am looking forward to being in the Arts District and perhaps seeing some flora and fauna – before watching Katherine perform and having a celebratory, three generation dinner.

 

Samuel and Emma will be in Bakersfield with people who love them.

 

I will trust they will both be fine and I will return, better than fine. They will remember I leave and I come back, I can leave with the lines between my eyes pronounced and return with a relaxed, cheerful face.

 

It sounds just right to me.

Julie publishes her ezine, the Daily Passion Activator, which includes an Essay and a Poem every week day - inspiration delivered directly into your email box. Why not Subscribe today? It's free.

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Stubborn Pencil Showdown - Daily Passion Activator - February 24, 2010

My pencil hung over my notebook, unmoving. Together, my pencil and I struggled. We stubbornly sat, facing each other, refusing to move first. It was such a simple thing as a poetry prompt which lead to such a sullen show down.

 

I never thought it would take me so long to write a list of ten things I believe and ten things I don’t believe.

 

It should be easy.

 

What do I believe?

What don’t I believe?

 

This is the sort of stuff that stirs the hearts of life coaches, thinkers and philosophers world wide. I stepped back from the question at least seven times.

 

Now that I think about it, at some point over the past couple of years I bored of the conversations around “I believe” versus “I know” and the like - ad infinitum the conversation goes. Words without experiences are meaningless to me. Don’t tell me what you know or what you believe unless you can back it up with experience I can see or touch or smell.

 

The boredom sang a tune of “Who cares, anyway?” until, finally, my pencil hit paydirt and I just started writing what I knew, writing what I believed, writing beyond the trite.

 

It was like the first “I believe” stuck in to the flow because it sounds rehearsed. It isn’t. It is what I believe. And because of that belief, I am diving into a deeper study so that I can decide where I want to go with that belief because I don’t know if where I am currently accepting that belief fits for me or my family anymore, knowing our beliefs alongside this first, number one belief.

 

With that, ten free flow beliefs which are to be born into at least one poem. That, I can do. That, I am doing.

 

1.     I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and Earth.

2.     I believe in the intrinsic good of humanity.

3.     I believe most people could benefit from raising consciousness.

4.     I believe most people long for soul connection, touching connection and being known, seen and heard.

5.     I believe the senses awaken creativity and the denial of such expression is one of the causes of depression.

6.     I believe in expressing emotions authentically without covering up or pretending or “acting as if”….

7.     I believe in the power of the pencil.

8.     I believe if people universally lived with purpose and passion, social issues would be greatly diminished.

9.     I believe clear communication without opinion laced judgment and “taking it personally” energy we could minimize wars and unrest.

10.                        I believe women are sexier and more beautiful as they age.

 

The first lines of the poem, now in the works:

 

We’re born naked and belonging in identical uniforms

Some with this and some with that otherwise

Remarkably universal and forever stamped

With a longing to return to some form

Of naked belonging….

 

= = =

 

I am also drumming up the experiential components to mix in with my beliefs and sit quietly, without the show down energy, to come to know what my beliefs are meaning to show me, to sing to me, to breathe into my being.

 

Until then, living the question and the poetry will be just right for me.

 

I believe.

 

I don’t believe.

 

What do you believe?

What don’t you believe?

 

© 2010 Julie Jordan Scott

Julie publishes her ezine, the Daily Passion Activator, which includes an Essay and a Poem every week day - inspiration delivered directly into your email box. Why not Subscribe today? It's free.

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Wordless Wednesday - I write in silence

And feel blissfully at home amidst the trees, the mud, the bright green grass....

Asking, Loving, Living these questions....

This week’s Three Word Wednesday (3WW) did not generate a poem. Instead, it prompted a questioning. Perhaps naming my puppy Rainer Rilke Jordan Scott has something to do with asking, loving, and living questions such as these.

 

Oh, the joy of prompts.

 

They take you places your mind would never meander on its own.

 

This week’s words:

 

generate

 

meager

 

tease

 

Today’s writing:

 

I can't seem to generate the ooomph for that aspect of my work that used to flow so easily. It is a tease, the meager poking of an idea, the quiet thumping of my heart against empty possibilities. What will it take to get the oomph back?

 

Do I really want it back?

 

Until I know - what is the proper course to take?

 

I can't seem to generate the ooomph for that aspect of my work that used to flow so easily.

Julie publishes her ezine, the Daily Passion Activator, which includes an Essay and a Poem every week day - inspiration delivered directly into your email box. Why not Subscribe today? It's free.

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One with Nature - Moments in Bakersfield Muddyness

I worked on the Creative Divine 21 Days project for two days in a row! This is a landmark situation indeed.

 

Today’s adventure will unfold in two essays. There is so much richness to be integrated, I don’t want to say too much without breathing a bit in between.

 

It feels more right that way, just like my body feels more right now than it did earlier this morning.

 

Today’s challenge? Nicola of The Whole Self was requesting me to "Use My Body as a Divining Tool, so I did.

 

My body had enough of the sitting at the computer thing this morning and urged me to get out, go out, move, connect with soil, feel breezes and cloud shadows and perhaps even get a raindrop or two upon my cheeks. My intellect could easily pull all those lush ideas asunder with the weight of “to-do’s” and chores and gottas, haftas, “are you crazy?”s but instead, I decided to take the instructions from Day 8 of 21 from Nicola at Creative Divine. Instead of brushing off my sleeves, I nodded to the insistent voice of my body which kept pulling on my sleeve, asking me to please, please PLEASE take it outside.

 

I grabbed my camera, my notebooks, my phone (just in case) and off I went.

I never know what to expect when I go to San Miguel Commemorative Grove, which is my closet near to nature location closest to my home. It is a sketchy place, meaning there are a variety of elements present there: some sordid, some sacred, some dangling in the middle. I can’t help but love the contrasts there.

 

Perhaps I love the contrasts because they remind me so much of myself.

 

Today was no different than the many other times I have found myself there. Wetness in winter means very spring looking grass, very bright green pressing up against weathered, dried up trees who bear testimony to the usual dry breath of Bakersfield.

 

I elected not to take my usual path, but instead find a different spot. I wanted a spot where I could write and feel and listen and write and feel and listen.

 

I even brought a chair with me this time, which, I eventually chose not to use but the thought was a good one.

 

I wanted to get a good spot to take a self portrait. I set up the shot and tried to get there before the timer shutter clicked. No luck from two different paths before a random stranger called out, “Do you need any help?”

 

My usual response to an offer of some one else to assist me - my unconscious, gut response is, “No, I am fine. I’ve got it covered” even when I haven’t. I stopped and took a breath, asking myself or God or whomever might be listening, “Is this a crazed crack head who will steal my camera or is it appropriate to honor his willingness to help me?”

 

I paused for a microsecond and said, “Yeah, sure.”

 

I framed the shot I wanted using a tree stump as a tri-pod and said, “All you need to do is push the button.” He said, “That’s easy enough.” I was all business still, at this point. “And that, there, is the button.”

 

I started walking toward the grove of trees.

 

He clicked when I asked.

 

I picked up my notebook, got quiet and connected to the earth, and wrote:

 

“My feet notice the moisture. Last year’s leaves return to the soil faster when there is more ‘weather’ to speed the process.

 

I wrote, simply, “Visual Silence.”

 

Followed by:

 

“What does visual silence look like? This morning I noticed each creak of the car as I drove. Today, I thought it was silent here – auditory silence – and now, as I write and as I am both an object and a subject, I hear the silence doesn’t exist here. We are still too close to the city. It still hums about us, here.

 

“I notice I want to write standing up, with my feet slightly sunk into the moist earth, a cushion, a just-right mattress. Not too hard, not too soft. I want to feel this ground under my feet, I am at home when I am connected like this, here.

 

“My feet feel constricted by my shoes. They want to be free. Maybe I need to find sandals. Maybe my feet, my soles of my feet, want to feel the skin of the Earth.”

 

“I lose self consciousness when I write, when I am home – here, in nature.”

 

My photographer friend asked, then, if he could try other angles. “Sure,” I said, barely looking up. “Follow your instincts… that would be great”

 

I wrote, “People long to connect. They want to help other people. They want to feel a part of something bigger than they are on their own. They want to connect to “home” in a universal sense.

 

I continued, on a different side of the art journal. “My photographer seems to be enjoying himself. I allow him to find home in the creative process. It works, it seems magic only it is completely natural and non-magic.”

 

His voice rises from my left. “If I would name you, I would call you ‘One with Nature’.”

I smiled up to him. “Yes, you are right, I am one with nature.”

 

The wind is blowing, gently. I feel it in my hands and on my face.

 

I feel done with this spot.

My photographer, whose name I will never know, stops clicking.

 

We chat for a while. He tells me he thinks reading is boring.

 

I scrunch up my eyes at that assertion. He likes to draw. “Would you like to draw now?” I ask him, “I have materials.”

 

“I have to be in the mood,” he said.

 

I nodded, not in agreement but in compassion. “Is all of this for an art class?” he asked me.

 

“No, except… well… my whole life is an art class.”

He accepted that with a similar nod, perhaps in compassion as well, as he turned back to the parking lot.

 

“Thank you!” I called after him. “The shots you got are perfect!”

 

I returned to my car, but my notebook and feet weren’t ready to go home yet.

 

I stood beside them and listened.

 

I shut the car door and smiled.

Julie publishes her ezine, the Daily Passion Activator, which includes an Essay and a Poem every week day - inspiration delivered directly into your email box. Why not Subscribe today? It's free.

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Day 7 (over close to 6 Weeks) of the Journey of the Creative Divine from @thewholetweet

The question arose from The Whole Self in her 21 Day Journey of the Creative Divine which has taken me something like six weeks now and I am only on Day 7!

 

She asks us the age old question:

 

If you could invite anyone to dinner, past or present, who would you choose and why?

 

Who do I want to invite to my dinner party?

 

I thought making the list would take me a long time, but it didn’t.

 

The top of the list include three people very close to my heart who are no longer here on the planet:

 

My dear friend, Tom – I would want to look at him again, smile and laugh with him. Ask him if there is anything else he needs to hear from me or that may serve me when he is gone again.

 

My brother, John – I just want him to be with me, nearby. He wasn’t one to sit at the table for a long time, but he could hand around outside the table and sort of listen in.

 

My daughter, Marlena (age 20) – I so want to be reassured that she is ok and I want her to be reassured that I am ok, too.

 

And then, a whole group of thinkers and transformers, with only two of them among the “still living”, at least on a physical plane:

 

Rainer Rilke – I would love for him to write a letter (speak a letter) to ME, a la Letters to a Young Poet.

 

Henry David Thoreau – Because I have been in love with him for years now.

 

Margaret Fuller – A passionate writer, publisher and mother. I want to know her.

 

Julia Margaret Cameron – I want to talk about early photography with her.

 

Eleanor Roosevelt – One of my heroes.

 

Mary Oliver – My favorite poet. Ever. Period.

 

May Sarton – I want her to help me find real estate in New Hampshire and just sit around the table, chatting, after dinner.. lengthy and restful and even a tad funny.

 

Denise Levertov – Another fantabulous poet.

 

Carly Simon – Do I need to ever say why when it comes to Carly?

 

The question comes up: what would we talk about at the party?

 

I think I should make up some questions and be sure to have each person on a microphone so I could listen to the conversation later. I would want to hold onto it, not let it happen and completely evaporate before I could even THINK about incorporating any of it because I would be flying so much higher than a kite.

 

There are people I would rather meet with one-on-one. Like Edna St. Vincent Millay: I worry she would get too drunk and distract from the main intention of the dinner party.

 

Now I want to come up with some questions for them.

= = =

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Home with a Fire at the Center #CED2010

I opened the door this morning and stepped from my home into a pre-dawn darkness that surprised me. Rain, sweet rain, fell on my cheeks as I turned my face toward the sky. With our mere six inches of annual rainfall, I never grow tired of waking to this feeling of freshness.

 

It has been a while since I have had such a peaceful start to my day. Breakfast at the table with my children, playful rituals with Samuel and then, empty quietness. I sat with my to-do list, wondering where to begin when it came to me: I wanted, more than anything else, to build a fire.

 

I wanted a fire to bring warmth to my home in a way only a fire can do, especially a fire that smells like wood rather than a “made in a factory” product.

 

I started small: with a lavendar-cedarwood candle. Cedar is a smell that brings my soul to rest almost instantly. I sat with my candle and quietly worked, a rather like Mona Lisa smile ever present on my lips.

 

I checked off my first “to-do” so quickly it was almost startling. I knew the fire was calling.

 

My fire-making supplies were piled and waiting for me to begin.  I checked my local air-quality website and saw it was, in fact, a day which was suitable for burning. I assembled the wood and lit a match. Rainer whimpered, the sweet puppy wasn’t used to having fires – I hadn’t burned one since he came to our home.

 

I pulled the purple arm chair close to the fire with my camera and my notebook in my hands. I breathed without writing, without clicking, I leaned back into the down supports and breathed, deeply.

 

Fires are ripe with metaphor: the perfect spot for a writer to contemplate and birth new images. I watched pine cones bristle and crackle and surrender themselves to the heat.

 

I listened to Rainer, afraid of the unfamiliar and almost willing to come close when I turned and spoke to him. My friendly voice over shadowed the unfamiliar crackling fierceness of the wood in the fireplace, offering itself over.

 

I wrote an American Sentence poem:

 

Words fill my notebook while Rainer whimpers, afraid of the fire’s sputters.

 

This morning at home is a far cry from the crazed busy-ness at the theater, yet I pause to remember the moments in our circle, when we gather before the show to revisit the previous performances and to remember our goals and intentions as actors, artists and collaborators.

 

I asked my friend, Matt, to take photos of this process and the outcome – seeing the sacredness of the gathering before we create, brought tears to my eyes.

 

Home, peaceful, quiet, with a fire burning in the center, too.

 

I am blessed beyond words.

 ------                            ------                    --------

Julie publishes her ezine, the Daily Passion Activator, which includes an Essay and a Poem every week day - inspiration delivered directly into your email box. Why not Subscribe today? It's free.

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Are You A Writer? Check out our Winter Writing Intensive Camp now - it might be exactly what you need to increase your writing productivity (and make the experience that much more joyful!)

Breathe, Relax, Unfold: Today's #mindfulist

The prompt today from the mindfulist says, “Take a deep breath and relax. It is all unfolding as it should.”

 

Well, I am not exactly sure the last sentence says exactly that, but I am trusting it is close. I want my relaxing to include not checking each tiny detail to get it ‘just right’. For example, I was going to use a different word there but I didn’t.

 

Who needs the difficult to spell infinitesimal when “tiny” will do?

 

I grabbed my coffee cup and held it insistently in both hands. I took a hungry gulp, as if it was the last coffee on the planet. What is up with that? Let me try it again, from the “take a deep breath and relax” place.

 

I notice the coffee is tepid now. Not deliciously hot as it passes over my lips and tongue and down my throat. It is satisfying in the same way a lukewarm bath is: it will do in a bind, but it isn’t the same as a brand new, first cup of the morning after a long night under a fluffy duvet satisfaction.

 

Yet the tepid, second cup is almost empty cup, after taking a moment to take a deep breath and relax is much more alive than the “eegads, grab that mug and slosh it down quickly before the coffee invaders steal the Yuban from your second shelf and taunt you all weekend long for not stocking up extra coffee stores for the long, February rain!”

 

I fold my hands together, like I did when I was a little girl who prayed in a very structured way. I lower my forehead to my hands and breathe. I feel my neck loosen and the vertebrae surrender to my breath and my prayerful stance.

 

It is as if each vertebrae is unfolding, is trusting, is taking a moment to wonder about… anything and everything and yes, wonder about absolutely nothing, too.

 

I take my hands from the keyboard to take a deep, prayerful breath and let my neck feel peace.

 

I feel it then, peace dripping onto my biceps and off my shoulders. Peace breathing its way onto my chest and down toward my feet. It feels like a surprising soft breeze at noon in Phoenix in the Summer after your car broke down. It feels like a hug of reconciliation after a misunderstanding with your closest friend and confidant. It feels like your cheek against a flannel pillowcase after a satisfying, productive day of connection and creativity.

 

My fingers cradle my face as it is lowered in peaceful breath, in prayer, in gratitude.

 

I call the names of my children into my mind and heart. I offer thanksgiving for each one.

 

I smile, knowing this is perhaps the most favorable way to spend this exact ten minutes today before I move along to the next thing. With these moments as the foundation of my day and a returning point when things get wobbly, I know I will be better able to trust the unfolding.

===

 

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