Julie Unplugged

I wish to step into...

It is so ironic that this is the question Jamie created for Wishcasting Wednesday.

"What do you wish to step into?"

I have just stepped into a bit of a dream-come-true so the feeling is fresh, vivid and altogether wonderful.

So, today - what else do I wish to step into?

How about wishing steps with a few  specifics:

I am getting my hair cut later, so I wish to step into a new color and style that flatters and delights me.

I wish to step into deepening relationships with my creativity coaching practice. I wish to step into more relationships with coaching clients overall. More clients, deeper relationships, greater impacts.

I wish to step into being an even better time steward.

And how wishing steps about a few concepts:

I wish to step into a greater sense of gratitude, abandon, freedom, wholeness, fitness and completion.

I wish to open my arms in welcome, to say yes to the gifts and treasures the Divine leaves on my doorstep.

I wish to remember what I know, to sing into the moment, to smile from my belly.

I wish to step into...

I wish to step into...

I wish to step into....

sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset, clouds, wind, rain, and maybe - even - snow.

I wish.

 

 

More about Her: A Story of 1/100 Strangers

A couple days ago I headed down to Dagny's to meet Cameron and Coryn and to write. I wanted to follow up with my work with And Now You Write. I wanted to witness what was unfolding me in this moment of life as it swirled around me. I had been to Flickr.com earlier that day and saw a challenge about taking a photo that involved coffee. There was a secondary challenge about photographing someone unknown to the photographer: a stranger. I wasn't sure if I would be able to do that unless it was incognito and the rules to this challenge were specific, so I was slow to commit.

I realized as I sat at a table-for-two in my party-of-one there were many people writing there at Dagny's in a lot of parties of one. The others, however, were writing into their cell phones. Texting. I smiled to myself at the discovery. I have been known to write poems via text when a pencil and paper aren't handy, but my primary tools are notebooks and paper when I am out and about. I don't carry my lap top on purpose. I want technology to be separate from my play-writing-out-and-about-time.

I see a barrista in blonde braids with a toasted bagel on a plate. It is for me. I smile and meet her eyes.

I hear her say, "Your bagel." I let it cool while I write these words and my Zambien Zing waits patiently for me to pay attention to it and drink it.

I touch the warmth of the bagel that fills my hands as I spread butter on it. I sense the pressure my right hand puts on the knife as I butter it. I probably use more force than necessary, like I notice I hold my pencils with more effort than is needed.

I notice the ceiling fan is moving my hair, almost like fingers lifting a strand and then letting it go.

I see a man in a purple checked shirt. He holds his cell phone in his right hand, his write leg crossed over his left leg with his foot, wearing a black shoe, resting on his knee.

"Excuse me," I hear a voice say. A young woman next to me tentatively touches my sleeve. "What does this mean?" she asks. Her finger points to the phrase, "referred by."

"Oh, that is asking who told you to apply for a job here." She nodded. I paused and said, "Did anyone say to you, 'Oh, Dagny's has an opening, you should apply there,,,,' or did you just walk in?"

She nodded again and said, "I am just walking from store to store to store, filling out applications."

Her English was slightly off - I could tell from my close listening it probably was not her primary language. As so often happens, she soon told me much more about her life story. That she had lost her job at Denny's, moved from her hometown about twenty miles north from Bakersfield. How she longed to see her four-year-old daughter more. How the father of her daughter had sole custody, how he kept them separate and was the cause for her losing her job.

At one point she said, "I'm not that dumb" just throwing the words in casually, as if she was adding pepper to some scrambled eggs.

When she paused, I said something and then said after I was sure she was listening. "And by the way, you are not dumb. You are not dumb at all. You are determined. That takes a lot of courage, a lot of smarts."

I explained I was going to go outside and write, on the patio, that I was meeting friends and I wished her well on her job hunt.

When she came outside, I asked her if I could take her photo. "I am a writer. And a photographer. I am taking photos of people I don't know, so that I may know them and know their stories. After we talked I thought..." and she said, her words tumbling over mine, "I was going to introduce myself to you, to tell you it was nice to meet you and..." we laughed together and I had her sit down. "Do you have those other job applications with you? Let's put them here, on the table... " and we arranged them underneath my notebook.

I wanted something to represent her tenacity. Her smarts.

I wondered if anyone else had ever called her smart?

I found out her name: Sarah Marie. She told me her daughter's name, proudly - which I will keep between us.

I hope she remembers what I told her.

Full Corn Moon Dream Board - Domes, Rituals, Cycles of Life

I create Full Moon Dream boards thanks to Jamie Ridler and her studios... so much creative oomph comes from there. Check out what the other dreamers are up to there and dream some full moon dreams of your own.

I used an entirely intuitive process with this Full Moon Dream Board. I didn't think about what I wanted to dream, I instead allowed the dream to find me. I can't even claim to know what any or all of this means, I am, instead open to both interpretation and experience to bring the dreams forward.

I had been pulling images for the two weeks leading up to the full moon. On the morning before the full moon, I was lead to pull some additional images including an image of one of Brunelleschi's architectural designs and some images from an old copy of Helen Gardner's A History of Art and some pages from the Red Fairy Book, a collection of Fairy tales published by Dover books.

The images are surprisingly connected - there were  more domes than I had known (and Brunelleschi is known for his construction of the Duomo in Florence, the first ever successfully created Dome structure in the 14th century, but my image from him isn't the duomo. The salmon, the frogs, the geiser, the pregnant bride and little girl - I see, now, circles of life. Circles of beginnings, of ripening, of following one's destiny.

I didn't set out to say "this is my desire" and yet it is my desire and it is in my process:

Sacred community, gathering to explore wildnernesses within us and all around us. Frightening new beginnings and our own ferociousness, our own sensual knowing and natural eruptions, connections and rituals which bring us back to ourselves, our sacred community and back again.

In the words, I randomly circled words and then did a round robin of sentences. Here is what I collected and molded into a poem, almost exclusively of the words in the books with a couple words thrown in for continuities sake:

The King's Daughter Who Feared Nothing

"Know and behold I am," she said.
"This had to be her dwelling place" he said.
In the very middle of it stood the tree of life.
They followed me into the dome.

In the autumn she felt a prodigious strength.
"I will see"

"Rest lightly and without effort"

Into the wilderness which sprang open a
secret staircase. The maiden laughed and
said. "Concentrate the load at the fewest
possible points."

All of them began to love her: both her rage
and fierceness and they were embraced
and enchanted by her.

/ / / / /

Powerful, this Corn Moon. Will be working with these images and listening for the path I am to take - although many are showing their faces to me even here, even now.

 

Pigs Preparing for Lift-Off

When I read the prompt yesterday from Carry on Tuesday, a worm started swimming around in my gut. It was slimey, uncomfortable, painfully slow.

"No one would have believed..." Keith asks me to write. I could have just sat down and burst off a poem. I type that tritely offered "I could have just...." and I hear a goose outside my window. How odd. No, it won't be a fairy tale poem today.

The prompt didn't remind me of its source,H G Wells 1898 novel, War of the Worlds. The prompt reminded me of an essay I wrote close to ten years ago about pigs flying and what I was doing professionally as a life coach and a writer.

I wrote of how my family and old friends couldn't believe the success I was creating for myself, the sheer joy and satisfaction I had in living and how people, many people, were reading my words and accepting my knowledge as good and right and worth reading.

Now as I write this I am hearing Paul Harvey saying. "And now you hear, the rest of the story..."

That pigs fly story lasted for a long time, but it feels more like the pig has landed with a kerplunk and I lost the oomph to launch it again.

My shoulders shrug into the "its too exhausting" story and "I don't want to make a fool of myself again" story.

The people I associate most closely with now didn't know the me then. Some of them even give me advice on how to be successful and I want to say, "Yeah, I used to write 'how-to's' and teach how-to's that shared what you are telling me and more. It isn't that I don't know this stuff from the inside out, its just that...."

And then I stop. I get tired of the castle I have built from my circumstances with the moat I draw up when I get tired or afraid.

The goose honks. "Tell the truth, Julie. Tell the truth!" its honk chastises my typing fingers which, like many others, have a tendency to veer toward safety rather than vulnerability.

I wished today for more soulful connections. I said I want meaningful, real, abundant connections. I pray I am creating that with you, here, reading this.

I wonder if you feel yourself in the shrugging "its too exhausting" shoulder story or the sideways glancing, "I don't want to make a fool of myself again" story.

Mostly, I want people to believe - I want everyone to believe what they wouldn't have necessarily believed before.

I want to prove to the world what they don't believe. Like the "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast had everyone believing our country was under attack by aliens. People believed this with all their hearts. Like the audience members who believe that what they are watching on stage is actually happening, live on stage. I want to tune into that suspension of belief so that the cynical may find the way.

It doesn't matter that I have been scared since I lived through my private hell.

It is human, and I am oh so human. Utterly, unabashedly human.

There is certainly nothing to be embarrassed about for taking time to tend to the wounds of illness, death, cancer and then take care of business and family in regards to Samuel's autism diagnosis. Until this very moment, I didn't realize that belief was holding on so tightly. How could that be embarrassing? It is empowering. It is role model worthy....

When I say I wish for soulful connections, I wish for deeper connections, I wish for more eyeballs reading my words, I wish for more students in my camps and classes and more faces smiling toward me at poetry events and readings. I want to watch people looking at my photography and my paintings and see their expression, their slightly squinted eyes and their wondering, curiosity, open spirit - and allow them the space to "get it" in their own way without me explaining "my way" because the way is the way is the way.

These are all truths, Madame Goose, who went someplace other than under my window.

Yesterday I was afraid to finish this. Today, I excitedly type, I pick up where I left off, I kick a stone and turn over another just a tad bit larger stone.

Pigs fly when they believe they can fly. I fly when I believe I can fly.

It is almost time... it is time... I am.... lifting off.

= = = =

Julie Jordan Scott is currently facilitating an enlivening

and inspiring program for writers, And Now You Write.

Join this community of creative souls (did I mention

it is free?) 

Wishcasting Wednesday: I wish for an abundance of....

Jamie Ridler's Wishcasting Wednesday asked us today, "What do you wish for an abundance of?"

I did my usual: read the question right before I went to sleep. When I was awake I got all sorts of immediate, knee jerk responses. I thought of the obvious: money! time! Love! and yes, I would be grateful for for a greater abundance in each of those areas.

I look at wishcasting to be tuning fork or a pitch pipe that says, "Come on, Julie, what do you truly wish... not what shallow thing pops up first due to 40+ years of habitually responding in a certain way, but what is your most true wish in response to the question?"

My wish, my most fervent wish is... I wish for an abundance of soulful connections. I wish to reach into people's hearts and souls and have people also reach into mine. I want to feel that depth of connection rather than ice skating along the surface of what is important, I wish to know that the work, the play, the creating I do and the creating I am be meaningful, be connecting even in ways I can not begin to fathom today.

I am blessed. My life is pretty much a hyphen-life. (I got this term from Ryan Seacrest, of all things!) Ryan says he has a hyphen life mostly due to the many hats he wears. He is a celebrity and he is a host-producer-on-air-talent-interviewer-investor-tons-of-other-things.  I am the same way but not so famous. ^Giggling^ I am a writer, mom extraordinaire, activist, actor, poet, actor, director, blogger, life coach, etc etc etc etc and in each of the hyphens there are more points of connection.

People may look at my paintings and feel connection with me and my work that I never know about. Sometimes I get notes and emails from people for whom this is true. The same with my writing, my poetry, my acting, my direction. For ALL of it. Now, I wish for a greater abundance and an exponential growth.

I have talked for years about being a part of the world transformation. This goes with that. I wish for an abundance of soulful connections. Starting here, with you, my fellow wishcasters. I wish for you to have many soulful connections as you travel about, wishing, wishing, wishing and loving, loving, loving.

I wish.....

 

Writers/Poets/Creative Souls Looking for inspiration?

Join the Creative Community of "And Now You Write"

Wondering this: What is it that keeps me from writing about autism and its impact on my family?

Yesterday afternoon I sat in a dark movie theater, watching a movie about a woman coming to terms with life transformations: she was grieving and loving and grieving and having a-ha's left and right and later in the day her computer would come out and we would see her, writing about it.

I was sitting next to my daughter, lazily watching - when I felt tears fill my eyes which had nothing to do with the movie.

"Sam, I hold Sam in my hand. This is why my writing veered off in his direction this morning. I need to write more of Sam."

My son, Samuel, had showed up in this morning's free write which had a prompt, "My hand holds..." and I very literally wrote, "my pencil..." and then seemed to hit a tangent.

I am facilitating a writing group called "And Now You Write" which include daily writing prompts. I sometimes write along with the group or on days like today, I pre-wrote from the lesson. I prepared the lesson ahead of time and while Samuel and I were waiting for the school bus, I wrote.. and without any effort the pencil in my hand turned toward Samuel.

In the dark movie theater, I remembered and I cried more.

I write about Samuel at about the same frequency as I write about my daughters.

I just have a tendency to leave out the part about his autism. Something with this sort of an impact on his life and on my heart seems like a natural for frequent, emotional writing that reaches out from my heart to others hearts, doesn't it?

I sound like I'm trying to convince myself of the importance of writing about this and I seem to be hiding behind the sand dunes which gather alongside the River Denial.

I sit down with my notebook again in the early morning pre-sunrise light to hold Samuel in my hand again.

I think of Samuel silently putting his hand on my shoulder in those moments when language is either unnecessary or it won't come or a simple touch means so much more than a bouquet of nouns, verbs and punctuation marks.

My pen followed its tendency to stop when I bump into something that has the weighty quality labeled "important" so I make a list, instead.

My hand holds Samuel so I will feel better.

My hand holds Samuel to understand him more.

My hand holds Samuel to be a better advocate.

I don't use my hand to write about Samuel because I feel like its a betrayal somehow. That it will hurt him. That I'll get all Jenny McCarthied out and become so annoying to my friends with neurotypical kids or friends who don't have friends that I'll write my way into being completely alone which is, ofcourse, right there in my top three fears.

I have this crazy image of Sam and me, when I am old in a parched desert. I have a tin can in my hand, waiting for a mule or camel train to pass by. "Please, sir, I want some more..." I mutter with a bad English accent, doing my best to be suitably Dickensian. My speech is incoherent babble and my writing has evaporated in the glaring sun.

No wonder I don't write about it if this is the vision I have.

What would happen if I changed the story?

Now that I have discovered a portion of what is there, what if I opted to move Sam and me out of the desert and face toward the light coming from transforming the planet and its people, many of whom are, like Samuel neurologically atypical.

Once again there was too much oomph to bear immediately so my pencil opted to work on an unrelated poem.

I find the word journey fascinating though, especially when I take the time to witness myself from outside myself. My inner battle to write about Samuel in relationship to autistic spectrum disorder harkens back to the days of being a special needs sibling myself. My brother, John, had Down's Syndrome. This fact had an enormous impact on my life, both overwhelmingly positive and at times, painfully negative.

Right after receiving the dagger of Samuel's diagnosis I cried not only for him, but for my daughters who would now bear the same status as "sibling of a special needs child." It isn't easy. I didn't want a life with that label for them. I knew what that could be like and I didn't want this aspect of my life reflected in my girls' lives.

Yesterday Emma was saying, "Samuel learned so much of his autism stuff from me. It is my fault."

Yes, he learns from her. No, he is not on the spectrum because of her any more than John had Down's Syndrome because of me. These disorders simply are and Samuel and John just are what they are because of the diagnoses.

This writing feels woefully unfinished and yet, I feel as if I need to speak these words, write these words into form and, perhaps, come back to them later when the fruit of their message is ready for harvest.

I wonder how this story connects with you?

I would enjoy hearing from you, I would enjoy knowing.

 

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Julie Jordan Scott

Wednesday Wishcasting: Coming Out of that Familiar Old Shell...

Jamie Ridler's Studio and her Wishcasting Wednesday 
have an uncanny knack for tuning into whatever it is I am meant to express and tapping on my psyche so that I stretch and breathe deeply and then let it all burst forth as they did this morning. I will graciously say thank you though there is a part of me that wants to smack wishcasting wednesdays "upside the head" as I used to say when I was younger.

Today's question, "How Do You Wish to Come Out of Your Shell?" was remarkably similar to what I started to write about in my morning pages yesterday as an enormous a-ha tiptoed around the edges of my psyche's stratosphere. I almost escaped without diving in too deeply (again!)

This was a "Stop the Blogpress" level of a-ha which I deserted... albeit only briefly.

You see, yesterday I started what I call a Mega-Program. A no-fee (although I do have a premium option this time around) challenging-yet-flexible, fun program to inspire participants to write daily while engaged in a community of fellow writers. Now, "back in the day" say, six, seven even five years ago I ran Mega-Programs regularly. I had hundreds of happy participants around the globe and a variety of programs to offer at least three times a year.

It was literally no big deal to me and a fantastic way to build my business while also having a blast!

Then life intervened as it so often will and I climbed into the shell. I stopped doing almost all of my favorite business blossoming activities. Multiple crises of illness, death, and my son being diagnosed with autism gave me this "go deeper into the shell magnet mantra" - "I have to let everything else go incase I am needed here."  The shell became my protective coating. It made me feel safe. It was like a quilt and a feather bed all in one.

Yesterday when the "And Now You Write" program started, I was exceptionally pleased and yet I realized I was still operating with a certain level of fear attached, somehow. I wasn't swinging out there the way I once did, oozing with passion and excitement and drawing people to my work and my offerings as if it was manna from heaven. It was so natural before the shell became my way of life. I realized yesterday morning fear was still my chief operating principal. I had somehow equated "getting too big" with attracting and inviting further crises into my life. I thought that if I "pushed it" I wouldn't be safe, that somehow acting in a slightly modified, slightly subdued way I could somehow protect my family from my passion. I could do my work and be content with my progress and meeting my goals and yet I could still keep the shell around my shoulders, if not covering my entire head.

I know this all sounds irrational and odd. The compassionate side of me says, "Yes, and it is also completley understandable." When John was sick and dying, my love for him was bigger than anything else. Remember, immediately after he died I had a momentous out-of-body experience when my soul attempted to join his. Imagining life without him was more than my soul could bear." No wonder this mantra and this shell-loving has been so strong. Especially when immediately after my soul attempted to launch from my body, Samuel's troubles in school increased and I would get calls at least once a week due to his "out of control" behavior which I didn't know at the time was actually due to his autistic spectrum disorder. I was made to believe his behaviors were the way they were because I was an inept parent.

Shell, pulled down. The safety of hiding beneath it became even more attractive.

So after John died and even now, after Samuel has successfully transitioned back into full time mainstream education, I lurk around with my shell across my shoulders, weighing me down with the mantra shouting, "I have to let everything else go in case I am needed here" bouncing off all corners as if it was a stadium announcer wanting even more attention than he naturally commands.

I wish to let my shell go.

I wish to take it off and stand not where I used to be with my mega-programs, but in an even more awakened, more passionate, more aware place with people who are willing to take their shells off as well.  I have started that AND I wish to do that without reservation, without mantra reverberation and with pure joy, love, hope and passionate determination.

Long ago I had a different mantra I used: "My business blossoms because I am bold." I am going to use that to replace the frightened-pull-everything-into-the-shell thinking.

It suits me so much better!

Thank you, Jamie. So much.

And in the vein of My Blossoming with No Shell Mantra - if you think you may be interested in writing within a creative community of inspired writers, check out And Now You Write... click on the photo below or this link right here.) a program my friend Jodi is saying is "Free, Fun and Fabulous." I would agree....

Wow. That all feels so good!
 

Thawing the Ice in the And Now You Write Icebreakers - #ANYW2010

This post is a response to the Writing Adventure "And Now You Write" which begins today. If you would like to be a part of a dynamic community of writers - check it out here:

These questions will help any writer and may be found  here - feel free to play along whether or not you are a part of And Now You Write. Just use the Mr. Linky so we may come to know you...

I write because....I must. I have answered this question before and this morning as I was driving I was thinking, "This question reminds me of asking 'I breathe because... ' or 'I drink water because'... I literally get sick when I don't write. Nothing works when I don't write. When I write, I live. It is as simple as that.

I want to write in the And Now You Write Community specifically because....magic happens when writers write together. We don't have to be physically close, but sharing a similar intention and sharing a prompt some how bonds us to one another and to the process. I think it is similar to why we join gyms for working out. We show up especially when we tell our zumba teacher "I will be there!" or when we have "made a date" with someone. Without that devotion, it is less likely to happen. The other thing is my fellow writers are incredibly inspiring. Their words nourish mine.

If I was glaringly honest, I might admit I am a little freaked out at the thought of writing.....badly. I am a little freaked out that my writing might make someone else upset or embarrass someone. I also worry people may get mad at me for the things I say through the course of the program. What if someone says something I don't hear sends me an email I don't receive or what if people start complaining about  me to each other... I worry about these things. I get freaked out about these things. Yet I need to be ok with these things if I want to continue to grow.

A couple of areas I hope to explore in my writing are.....the power of practice. The art of building an image. Finishing.

And just for kicks, I want to tell you....when Jodi said on this morning's call that we first wrote together in 2004 tears came to my eyes. The three plus years in between this style of writing program is intimidating and could have been a block. I am grateful I put this on my goal list and followed through on it.

I feel like I am just touching the tip of the iceburg with my ice breaker responses. I may revise this yet. :-)

Expanding Paintings/Expanding Heartstrings #CED2010

Something happened to me this week that has never happened to me before.

I missed my paintings.

I started work on two paintings (I call them the WHAT IF series) this past Wednesday at the Art and

Spirituality Center and ever since I have left them at the sstudio to dry , I have missed my paintings. I even went so far asparticipating in a writing group not entirely in hopes of "bumping into" my paintings there,

but it definitely was an attraction - and it was a possibility with reward.

I didn't realize I could miss paintings.

I showed some photos of the paintings to Cameron, who I consider to be "a real artist"

as compared to me, someone who creates for fun and occasionally does a

respectable job. He looked at the first photo and said something like, "Hmmm. Fire."

And I said, "No, that isn't fire, that is the earth. Although I also see a woman in it now,

which is perfect for mother and earth and hey, I created something by accident that

another woman there at the studio wanted to learn how to do herself. I may have

inadvertently created a technique."

Cameron nodded and looked through the other photos. "I would like to see your paintings,

full sized, in person."

 

The thought of that frightens me. I smiled at him and said, "Great! Come to the studio!"

knowing the likelihood of that was the same as me visiting Antarctica in the next

six months. Highly unlikely.

In the writing group I attended, I looked at the paintings on the wall from a distance.

At one point I waved toward them, "I painted those," I said, head down in

semi-embarrasment and definite self-consciousness.

When I explained the process and how it felt to paint, all my self consciousness

slipped off my skin, "When I painted, it was as if I lost language. I couldn't speak

when I was done and my heart was like in the Grinch, expanded. In fact, it was

so far expanded, I could barely breathe. I had to concentrate in order to fill

my lungs completely."

I paused, and looked away.

"It was incredible," I finally finished.

This had never happened to me before.

I pray it happens again.

I will be back at the Studio, painting, this Wednesday. I'll let you know how it goes.

= = = = =

Writing is my anchor art. I've been teaching writing for ten years now. I have a new (did I mention free) program starting this week:

It is called And Now You Write.  Register by clicking on the image or here.
 

　

What is it? - Remembering....

This was written late at night, as September 11, 2001 was winding down. I had subscribers to my ezines from all over the world who were unanimously worried about me, as an American. They didn't necessarily realize I was 3,000 miles from the Pentagon or the World Trade Center. These readers felt like they knew me, as I landed in their email box with such regularity - they knew my children, my day-to-day life... and like the rest of the world, they longed to know that the people they "knew" were safe.
This essay went on to be re-published many places, including Chicken Soup for the Soul of America. I read it now and cringe at some of the writing but hey, as creative people our style changes over time.

The message remains true. Hear my words and the experiences of my family from nine years ago.

 
The simple question continues to echo through my mind hours later.

 

"What is it, Mommy?" my nine-year-old, Katherine, asked. "What
is it that makes some people do something so awful! What is it?"

 

The day was dawning as she questioned me. We were standing in
our front yard, the sky turning from grey to blue as we prepared
to take her to school. She looked up at me, her deep blue eyes
round, her innocent face expectantly waiting for an answer. Her
expression said "Mommy will know the answer. My Mommy can
take care of anything."

 

I paused, looking towards the sky. The same sky that had just
carried passenger planes turned weapons of destruction plowing
into American targets. Targets I had seen personally. Targets I
could remember being built as a child in New Jersey. Targets that
are visual icons of New York and Washington, DC.

 

"Fear. Hatred. Misunderstanding. And the desire to keep people in
fear, hatred and misunderstanding." I looked at my daughter, who
at nine is wise beyond her years. She was slowly nodding. I
continued: "People know if you are afraid, you can not feel love.
If you can not feel love, you can not feel peace. These people do
not want us to feel peace or love. They want to control us. We
won't let them do that, though, will we?"

 

In a very short conversation, Katherine had brought my resolve
firmly back to me. She reminded me of a very important lesson
that lives deep within me. In the moments after I heard of the
devastation that was occurring so close to where I had grown
up, I was frightened to the point of near hysteria. I paced,
frantically worried about my children, my friends, my safety, my
country, my world.

 

Katherine reminded me that I could not feel fear AND feel love
at the same time. As I listened to reports from survivors, I heard
gratitude in their words. I heard an unusual peace. I heard light
among the tragedy.

 

We can love as we grieve the senseless loss of so many lives. We
can love as we pray. We can love as we donate time, blood and
money to the Red Cross and other charitable organizations. We
can love as we talk to complete strangers as we sort out our own
feelings about the tragedy. We can love as we hug our children,
friends and neighbors. We can love as we take an extra moment
to simply feel grateful for each breath. For each moment. For each
person whose lives we touch positively. We can love as we put
one foot in front of the other. We can love as we choose to trust.
We can love as we serve our fellow world citizens.

 

Later this afternoon I was with Emma, my four year old daughter at
the park. She came to me and I gave her a big hug. She looked at
me and stated simply: "A plane flew into a building. Lots of people
died. Lets talk about it".

 

So we did. Plainly and with the vocabulary of a preschooler we
talked about what had taken place in New York City. She went
back to playing.

 

She returned to me and said, "Mommy, give me a nice big hug so
the bad guys can't get me."

 

So I did. Hug. Love. Keep the bad guys away. And when the bad
guys come anyway remember to hug. To Love. To trust. To feel
peace deep within you.

 

Hug. Love. Live.

© 2001
Julie Jordan Scott