"What makes you reach for a comfort food?" is the question the folks at BlogHer's NaBloPoMo are asking today.
I reach for comfort food for a variety of reasons.
The most obvious is I treat comfort food like a security
blanket. The irony is continued use of this practice has made me anything but
comfortable with myself. This is why I haven’t had rice with butter and salt in
months. I miss it, but I am now reaching – usually – for other things.
I was remembering this morning when I was the most
disciplined (and the most self loving) around food. I was visiting New Orleans
and all I wanted to eat was a salad from a salad bar. Gosh and golly, we found
a place with a salad bar and for that moment all that crunchy, dark green
goodness soothed me – much like rice with butter and salt soothes me.
Now, to live the question, “What will be the most
productive, long term method to getting back to being comforted by food that is
healthy rather than foods which are traditionally not so healthy?”
What can you do to shift your thinking toward Healthier Comfort food?
This month with NaBloPoMo from BlogHer.com the theme is
Comfort. So far, I have completely enjoyed answering the prompts - they are all
bringing back surprisingly clear memories that had been tucked away for far too
long.
The theme today? Comfort Food - from my This is Comfort series using prompts from BlogHer.com
Today's NaBloPoMo question is: What is your biggest comfort food?
It is ironic to be asked this question on this day. It is my son
Samuel’s twelfth birthday. A week before he was born, my Mom rode in like the
cavalry to help me. She usually didn’t show up before the baby was born, but
this time it was different. I was alone with my three older daughters. I was
enormous at this point and felt most comfortable sitting on the couch.
She opened the door to my house on that Spring Day and came
to me, her younger daughter who was hugely pregnant at thirty-nine years old. I
imagine I looked as pitiful as I did when I got my tonsils out at age 6.
“What can I get for you?” she asked. Naturally with a Mommy
the first thought is “What can I feed you?”
My request?
I asked for steamed rice with butter and salt AND an egg
salad sandwich.
It was so simple for her to create and so comforting for the
very pregnant me.
These are still two of my most commonly requested comfort
foods.
There are no recipes necessary except love and I am
supremely satisfied.
What is YOUR favorite comfort food?
This month with NaBloPoMo from BlogHer.com the theme is
Comfort. So far, I have completely enjoyed answering the prompts - they are all
bringing back surprisingly clear memories that had been tucked away for far too
long.
This is the face of a woman who is drunk on words. Word high. Blissed out by words.
Artist’s Dates, Writer’s Dates, special times you devote to
freeing up your creative juices in a sort of “without a product purpose sort of
way.
I believe in them.
Ever since I was first introduced to the concept of the Artist’s Date by
Julia Cameron I wanted to celebrate. This is something I do naturally and now, someone
had given me permission.
My favorite writer’s date is to go to the library for a
couple hours and surround myself with books and then… read them, take notes,
and allow them to do their thing with my mind and soul.
I call it word drunk. I know, this might not be politically
correct, but I don’t know of another woozy, slightly out-of-body bliss way to
describe it. Before you say anything or click away, please realize there is a
history of alcoholism in my family, so people who are drunk on alcohol frighten
me. Seriously.
But being high on the written word? There is absolutely
nothing like it.
Last week on my library date with myself I also bought six
books for sixty CENTS. Yes, you are reading those numbers right.
Sixty CENTS.
I also brought some word-love flowers to grace my table as I
read and wrote.
It was almost like being at my desk at home except there was
no computer and I don’t have quite this many books surrounding me as in the
library. It may seem strange to you, but I love having books that have a
history of being read by other people. I especially love having books other
people have inscribed.
Word-love, after all, is something to share. Bliss is
something to share. Which is why I am here, talking to you today. I have even been known to encourage my friends to imbibe in word bliss with
me. This is my friend, who joined me at the library. I heard when he lamented, "I don't even know where the library is in this town."
He read about the subject that makes his heart go a flutter.
He was also impressed by the art he saw on display and treated me to a bit of an art tour of the place. See what happens when you allow yourself a couple hours of indulgently browsing and hanging out at the library?
Do you see those two books on top of my library stack pile?
They are Margaret Atwood’s The
Door and the Letters of Louise Bogan? I bought them both on Amazon when I
got home. The Atwood poetry book included a CD of her reading her poems and
cost me a mere ten dollars and the Louise Bogan book was less than five dollars
altogether AND it is inscribed, a pleasant bonus I discovered when I tore it
open two days after I ordered it.
I wrote this page and became delighted all over again.
Word-love. Word-blissed-out and yes, Word-drunk... that comes with a creative hangover which is almost as fun as the primary experience.
A Visual Reminder of My Value in the Gift I Gave Myself Today
I had a rather restorative day today: I saw Silver
Linings Playbook (again) with a friend who had not seen it yet. We went to lunch at our favorite
Mediterranean “fastaurant” before visiting our local Trader Joe’s. When we were
walking toward the store I knew I wanted to buy myself flowers.
I told my friend, “I am going to buy myself some flowers
today.”
He laughed and said, “Oh, are you fancying yourself more than usual
today?”
To which I responded, “Well, I have been exceptionally
grateful with my caretaking during my illness this week. I think I deserve to
be rewarded for such loving patience so I am going to give myself flowers and
say, ‘Julie, well done!’”
We both laughed because yes, it was absurd but yes, it was
also exactly what I needed.
Trader Joe’s has ridiculously inexpensive flowers so for
under ten dollars I got either an enormous bouquet or two regular sized
bouquets. The enormous version is now sitting on my desk. I can smell the
flowers as I type.
Take pride in loving yourself enough to enjoy giving yourself gifts others have forgotten to give you.
I am smiling as I smell the flowers as I type.
“Julie, you’re great!” the flowers sing.
“Why thank you, Julie, you are something else yourself,” I
respond to the flowers/me.
How simple of me to show me some love like this and wow, how
much enjoyment I am giving myself!
I started buying myself flowers years ago, but I’ve never
gotten in the practice of it. I sort of participated in a challenge to make my
home more welcoming in January and one of the first things we were cued to do
was to buy fresh flowers once a week. Everytime I purchase and arrange flowers,
I get a pick-me-up. I have bought inexpensive flowers at the local Farmer’s
Market, in the grocery store, and like today – at a favorite “alternative”
market filled with both yummyness and beauty.
Naturally, I don’t mind if someone else decides to buy me
flowers, but getting them for myself – with pride – is a way of making myself
and anyone else who walks into my house or even you, reading my blog – feel
treasured.
Perhaps these words give you permission to go treat
yourself.
Why don’t you try it?
You have permission to giggle at yourself while finding out
how much a less than ten dollar investment may bring complete contentment into
your heart.
This is a word cloud of my Butt in Seat Poem, #1 for the day
It has been a challenging day for my writing muse.
I have not been the kindest companion to her.
I finally got into a writing groove but what came was
poetry, not prose.
What came was silly and then historical and not like my
usual at all.
I think it may have been thanks to the post it notes,
whispering to my subconscious.
“poetry, tags, convert pages to the Writing Camp blog.”
My subconscious has delivered. I cannot remember the last
time I wrote two poems in a day. This is
different. This is welcome. This is a pleasure.
I worked on a couple of my newest mixed media pieces today.
I came up with a new strategy for one of them.
I created and completed and have more art simmering on my work
table.
Post it Note To-Do List Delivers: Poetry and More Poetry
The prose I have written is a grand total of about four
hundred words that felt like they took four hundred years to arrive on the page.
There is always tonight to write AND whatever words tumble
upon the page is fine, too. Normally I easily string 1,000 words along in under
an hour, but today whatever words percolate is fine by me.
Even when the words sound and feel ridiculous, any words are
better than no words.
This is my twenty-eighth post (of 31!) for the January Ultimate Blog Challenge.
Watch here for challenge posts which will include Writing Prompts, Writing
Tips and General Life Tips and Essays.
A question to tuck into the back of your mind as you read:
What is your creative process teaching you?
My day yesterday was flat out weird creatively.
I couldn’t get myself to sit still to create anything
meaningful or long lasting. I didn’t even write anything of merit and when
things are sour, at least my writing muse comes out to play most of the time.
I gessoed, I did some first coats of paint, I took some
photos, I collaged but I wasn’t happy with what I collaged.
For a change of pace
I picked myself up and visited Hart Park where I contemplated at my favorite
spot.
Something wants to float up from me, so I honored my lack of sitting
still with some quiet time out of the house.
I even brought some pieces of my art as my companions.
At least the day wasn't a complete loss as I look back at it.
I helped a sick friend, I purchased materials which were running low, I laughed at synchronicities that told me I was on the right track even though I felt wrong.
I allowed myself to feel nostalgic for being on the stage.
I watched yet another Hallmark movie and didn't beat myself for not making roses at the same time. I felt like I needed to rest, free from movement.
Great thought: a week to myself, a luscious extravagant nothing planned week to myself....
Since I am tired right now, probably close to perpetually since I became a Mom nearly twenty-one years ago, I think, “I would go to sleep early and stay asleep as long as my body wanted to stay asleep.”
I would also go someplace other than home to create, to contemplate and to declutter my thoughts.
Right now there is a lot of thought-matter up there. I would take a week to bid adieu to the thought matter. Just open my mind and let the sun, the wind, the breeze, the thunder and lightning touch it.
I would like to ease into a 48 fast from communication. No talking, no writing, no reading.
Easing back into communication, I would give myself an hour with my notebook daily for the rest of the week. For the rest of that time, no one else’s judgment, opinions or beliefs would touch my now cleared mind.
I would have space to begin missing people.
I would ease back into normal life by slowly reappearing. A small slice of time with my cell phone on, perhaps a text or two, but I think after that I would be committed to a time, daily, to let me mind open and flutter in the breeze without agenda, without plan, without concern except to be open.
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
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It's important to have some “do absolutely nothing” time every once in a whileaway from your children.
I don’t even mean time for what we would normally call self-care, like getting a manicure or taking in a matinee or even having a chatty lunch with a girlfriend you haven’t seen for a while.
I mean time to do absolutely nothing.
I like to do this on my porch, usually in the early morning before anyone else is awake. Sometimes, though, doing absolutely nothing time only comes in the dark. Like last night.
Last night I sat on my porch in the near middle of the night because sometimes this is the only time I have to “be away” from my children. My son begged me to rest my weary self next to him while he fell asleep because he has cultivated a recent fear of ghosts and haunted houses and the still darkness of his pillow conjures scary thoughts. He will call out, “Emma, is that you in the hallway?” because he is afraid the footsteps belong to an unknown ghost.
So I gave him plenty of time to fall asleep and then crawled out of the bed and onto my porch. I sat and listened.
The thing about being quiet is it takes a while for your ears to acclimate to the quiet, just like when your eyes get used to the dark.
The quietness waits as if to see whether you are trustworthy to hear the nuances and hushed messages of near silence.
Like in the morning, when I write haiku, last evening I wrote some contemplative short poetry:
My neighborhood sounds so different late at night.
Breeze helps me forget 100 plus days.
Crickets sing timelessness.
Car passes, unaware.
I don't want to be that car, passing unaware.
I would rather be a cricket or a leaf the wind is strumming.
I tweeted the poetry as it was born, thinking there might be others out there who couldn’t sleep and rather than being bothered by sleeplessness, I thought they might want to step out their front or back doors and sit awhile to listen to whatever sounds there are in their neighborhood’s near silence.
It's important that every once in a while to have some “do absolutely nothing” time away from your children, even if it only steps away while they are sleeping in another room.
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
This is post #16/31 for the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Slowly and surely I am getting caught up!
I have taught myself how to be cheerful in the morning. There may be a bit of a hereditary piece here, but I believe all people are capable of waking up with a brighter perspective in front of their eyes. Please try at least one of these tips to see how it will change you.
Ready to Wake Up?
Know what you need to get done – and start the day doing something you are passionate about doing every time: This may mean to start the day writing in your notebook or taking photos of dawn or, if you’re like me, sitting on my porch writing haiku.
Use yummy smelling (to you) morning things: soap, face cleanser, toothpaste… or if you use unscented personal items, how about waking up and lighting a candle – initiating light into your day and dedicating your day to passion, love and light (or your greatest intention.)
Don’t rush, don’t delay. If you wake up with an alarm, get up when it goes off. Stretch when you turn it off. This is so simple and it works. Arms up over your head, stretch and smile! Greet yourself (even if this sounds corny.) If you keep a dream dictionary, write in it.
Play music (softly) preferably “language free”. Words are so powerful, they punch your subconscious mind with all sorts of suggestions. Early in the morning, instrumentals are best to keep your mind clear and your attitude moving forward.
You’ve heard it a thousand times before: have a healthy breakfast. Sometimes a smoothie is the best breakfast there is. A donut and coffee definitely don’t count as a healthy breakfast. If this means rethinking your routine then rethink your routine.
Start your day with radical self care and if you are one to add spirituality to your self-care, do so daily. Meditation, Free writing, Yoga, Pilates, a Walk or any combination of the above to begin refreshed and renewed: These work.
Stay Unplugged: Give yourself an hour before you turn on your computer or check your text messages. Really, all this can wait. No email with barely awake eyes, please. Settle into your day away from the keyboard or television. You will be grateful!
Tell your housemates what works best for you. This includes children, spouses and parents. My children know I write every morning, so they will sit at a table with me, quietly. I simply set that expectation and they know the expectation. Once I arranged it, everything has been just right.
This is post #13/1 for the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Slowly and surely I am getting caught up!
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
Did you enjoyed this essay? Receive emails directly to your inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -
This Summer I asked for mothering advice from two famous Hollywood Mothers.
Well, I didn’t ask them mothering advice exactly the way you might think.
These are not, after all, living Hollywood Mothers.
They are legendary Hollywood mothers who are no longer alive.
I took time beside them at monuments in their honor: Donna Reed, the first mother, at her graveside in Westwood and then Joan Crawford, at her Hollywood Walk of Fame star.
Donna Reed’s show was one of my childhood favorites. It was in reruns by the time I watched it. I loved her swishy dresses and pretty face. She reminded me slightly of my own mother, except for the wardrobe. I got older and fell in love with Mary on “It’s a Wonderful Life” via its annual showings during the holiday season.
She seems like someone everywoman would want to chat with about motherhood, about being a woman, and then after the layers of fiction were released, I would want to know about what compelled her as an artist. I might even ask her now, post life, about what she misses about being alive.
Perhaps this is something that compels me as a writer: wanting to know about death and after death. Wanting to know at the end of one’s life as an artist what sifts out as significant. What seemingly small work became what one remembers the most and what “big” project turned meaningless and why – how- where – what was up with that as it happened?
Now Joan Crawford is a completely different mothering story. I wouldn’t even think of asking her mothering advice but something in my gut brought those words to my lips as I cuddled up next to her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame last Sunday night.
Yes, as odd as it sounds, I rested on the sidewalk with her star in order to get a compelling photo. I will do almost anything creatively for art or a laugh or both. It was sincered when I heard myself whisper to Joan, “Do you have any motherly advice for me?”
She has become a mothering joke from the “Mommy, Dearest” book and film. “Wire hangers” are legendary because of her disgust for them as they played host to expensive clothing she didn’t feel her daughter, Christina, valued as she should with a more voluptuous, fabric covered hanger.
I wonder how her thoughts would change if she could speak after death. While she was living she said, "Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell."
What would happen once her anger and fear went away?
I poked around online, newly fascinated by these two iconic women. I discovered Donna Reed, who was a mother to four children and a “second mother “ to co-star Shelley Fabares, was also a co-founder of the Peace Activist Organization, “Another Mother for Peace”. Within the group’s beliefs is “No mother is enemy to another mother.”
What would Joan’s life as a mother been like if another mother – another woman – had reached out to her with that sort of compassionate, loving energy of “no enemies here, simply mothers caring about other mothers”?
What would happen once her anger went away?
What got in the way of her freedom from anger?
What can we, as mothers and as women, learn from how she held more tightly to anger and rage than to the love she must have felt underneath all that excess emotional warfare she fought every day.
You may be reading this thinking, “How do these two Hollywood Mothers have any relevance in my life today, anyway?”
Do you know anyone whose anger and fear tear awayen any love in a poisonous fire of contempt that kills any hope of joy they may have within them?
Perhaps this essay was written especially for you so that you may ask the questions to your friend or family member that I posed to non-living beings:
What would happen if your anger went away?
What would happen if you let go of anger and replaced it with something less destructive?
What is getting in the way of your freedom from anger?
Donna Reed might tell Joan Crawford, “When you handle yourself, use your head; when you handle others, use your heart."
When you handle your children, use your head, your heart and your arms for hugging.
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
Did you enjoyed this essay? Receive emails directly to your inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -
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