Julie Unplugged

Creative Every Day ~ Beginning 2011 with Art ~ What else? #CED2011

I can't remember being this conscious of final this and last that of a year as I am this year.

Kind of wild and wonderful, too, as it makes each "this is the last time" that much more rich.

Maybe it is because 2010 was so filled with endings of old ways and beginnings of new ways and with the holiday season, integration of old and new.

Today I watched the final sunset of 2010 from the top of an "in construction" bridge, a "road closed" which I tenaciously walked upon, anyway, very much a metaphor of 2011 as we ride the energy of the cosmos into the next 365 days.

As I looked through photos I took earlier today to show you, I was reminded of the divine message I received more than 10 years ago now when I was told "Julie, my love, you are a bridge." Here's to continuing to bring that into fruition with joyful abondanza as we create together this year!

Before this first week of January is out, I will have hung the very first art show I have ever curated: Visible Poetics at the Empty Space theater. Next Saturday will be our opening event which includes a Poetry Open Mic and hopefully, a lot of art work will be sold!

I will have finished some unique sculpture and altered some photos and perhaps, taken more photos and written a lot and continued with rehearsals for "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" which appears to be my final theater appearance before my (at least year long) theater sabbatical.

Happy New Year to Each and All, especially my Creative Every Day friends as we begin anew.

Central Story at My Core: Here, it is, World! #Reverb10 to end 2010

December 31 Reverb Prompt: What central story is at the core of you, and how do you share it with the world? (Bonus: Consider your reflections from this month. Look through them to discover a thread you may not have noticed until today.)

Author: Molly O’Neill

I reviewed all my Reverb posts because Molly suggested I do so, as a bonus, and since I was always an honor student I did like I was told.

And then, in the most simple form came the central story at the core of me both via Reverb10 and life before and after.

It took me most of the day to actually post this because I was busily living this last day of 2010 with as much richness (yet mundane, everyday activities) as possible.

The central story at my core: Love takes form in unexpected ways: my job is to document and craft creatively with whatever question taps my shoulder and asks to be lived through me and expressed through my artful life.

Today I showed love in french braiding my daughter Katherine's hair, by doing laundry and washing dishes. I showed love in being patient and sorting out the clothes I purchased for thirteen-year-old Emma.

I showed love in writing poetry and writing prose and taking photos.

I showed love through speaking with friends and making plans that honor me and my desires without building resentment and attempting to build a schedule that is framed according to what they wanted for me rather than what I want for me.

I worked on art for the Visible Poetics art show.

I documented the sunset: chasing it and joining it on a yet-to-be-opened bridge spanning the Kern River. My love for the planet shows in those photos as well as my love for the workers and the future cars which will cross the bridge once it is finished. It was when I was almost done that I realized I was chasing the final sunset of the decade. I hadn't realized the decade was over.

It is content-making, this "chasing the sunset" practice.

Tomorrow morning, I will "chase the sunrise", mindfully greeting the first new morning of this new decade.

It is a blissful time, this day.

Samuel is playing a game and making more noise than I appreciate. His laughter echoes on my right shoulder and suddenly, the noise is fine after all.

I will continue to write, to teach, to reach new audiences.  My theater sabbatical will take place very soon. I can feel it.

Next year when there is another Best09 or Reverb10 sort of program, I will write again. I hope many of you will as well.

May our years express abondanza, stretching beyond you and out into the world.

Love takes form in unexpected ways: my job is to document and craft creatively with whatever question taps my shoulder and asks to be lived through me and expressed through my artful life.

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Gifts: From Me to You to Me and Back Again. Blessings in 2010 and Woo hoo Abondanza, 2011! #Reverb10

Prompt: Gift. This month, gifts and gift-giving can seem inescapable. What's the most memorable gift, tangible or emotional, you received this year?

 

 
I went on a walk this morning with my camera, just for fun.

It wasn't exactly where I wanted to go, but circumstances took me out and about my neighborhood so that I could document this early morning, December 30, 2010.

  

It is a one time only thing ~ this gift. I took it, graciously. I am now sitting here, uploading the photos onto Flickr and thinking about the #Reverb10 prompt today.

I have made some forward, intentional motion regarding gifts in 2010. In 2011, I only want to receive (we're talking physical gifts now) things people make or find someplace else, that someone else has used. I don't want anything picked up at Target on the way. I would rather someone take a photo or write a poem about the choice to not pick up something at Target. I have come to a place in my life where gifts are more than the new stuff... the bauble, the trinket that will be in a future donation bag to goodwill or regifted or possibly in the landfill because while it may have been good intentioned, it just didn't mesh with my life.

So ~ on to the most memorable gift.

The most significant gift of 2010.

I realized it as I was walking along the streets of the Upper La Cresta neighborhood, in Bakersfield, California. My fingers were chilly, but I kept snapping what might seem to some as random photos of whatever struck my fancy as I reflected on this year, once again.

 

This year was mundane and wild, in a "fancy pants" way as my sister might say.

The end of the year it felt like everything was lining up for me ~ people started appearing out of the muck and mire and last year's leaves to offer me ways to give me money to do the things I love. These were growth opportunities and ways not to learn anything new, but to do more of what I am doing and what I love to do now. Right now. In a bigger, bolder, more financially abundant way.

It is like everything I have been doing for these past few years since my business got back burnered all of a sudden went from embers to blazing without me doing anything except continuing to put one foot in front of the other.

None of that would have happened if I didn't give myself the gift of time. The gift of not pushing. The gift of feeling what I needed to feel, processing what needed processing, loving myself and my children and my community with an infinite, wordless, unmistakeable love.

There were times during the period of "quiet business" that I wondered what the hell I thought I was doing.

It didn't always feel so good.

It was downright scary and sometimes hungry and sometimes angry and sometimes frustrated and sometimes it felt like I was in the center of an enormous stadium and no one else was around for miles... just me. Lying on the grass in the middle of left field. Somehow being ok with lying on the grass in the middle of left field.

In fact, that was when momentum started doing its magic.

When I didn't want to be anyplace except there, lying on the overgrown grass in the middle of left field.

I wasn't frowning anymore, I was smiling. Content. And the people started wandering in, lying down with me. Commenting on the clouds. Noticing the cool sunrises. Bringing paper and writing alongside me. Laughing loud and not being embarrassed about it. Feeding ducks and birds. Taking random photos there, along right field because even though the adventure seemed to call way outside the stadium, there was nothing wrong with right field and my gut said, "Right field is cool. Go shoot along its edges. The Call way outside the stadium is not going anywhere."

I could have written this Reverb10 post when I first woke up, but it would have been different.

It would have been fine, too, just fine, but this. Now this... feels... just right.

Emma is snoring. Hank the dog is snoring. My coffee is more than likely cold by now, and Samuel is playing with... a num chuck? This gift of time keeps giving itself to me in extraordinary ways and I am grateful.

2011 is beckoning me. I know the pace will be faster and slower. I know I will love it, no matter what comes, because if it gets too be too much or not enough or even feels like too much or not enough, I know how to lie down here in left field. Gently lower myself and look up at the sky and wait to see what messages come to me in the exact right moment.

As a matter of fact, one of my final gifts of 2010 is to offer you a space here, too.

Yes, right here, beside me.

Lower yourself on this green grass of left field. There is a perfect you space here.

Ohhh, you look so peaceful and content.

Smiles, all around.

Thank you, 2010. Thank you.

 

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Abondanza Achievement in 2011: #Reverb10 and Being with Desires

Reverb 10 Prompt: Achieve. What’s the thing you most want to achieve next year? How do you imagine you’ll feel when you get it? Free? Happy? Complete? Blissful?Write that feeling down. Then, brainstorm 10 things you can do, or 10 new thoughts you can think, in order to experience that feeling today.

 

I swore off goal setting until the New Year in the beginning of January and this feels an awfully lot like goal setting. And the thing is, I love goal setting. I know all about measurable milestones and taking small steps but not too small.I have had many times during December when I almost wrote down something that LOOKED like a goal and I had to manuever my way out of it.

No, no, NO goal setting, Julie! Stop it!

So, with that prefacing what I am about to say... I came up with 5 achievements I desire in 2011 that are not tied to any specific activities but which are more about qualities and ways of being than A + B = C brand of goal setting and goal achievement.

I desire to achieve experiences of satisfying, job well done curtain calls: I want to play exceptionally well written roles with incredible creative teams combining passion and "how-to's" and vision sparks vision. I want to be satisfying when I take my bows, not a sense of relief "thank God one more show is down" that I have been doing too much of this past year.

I desire to achieve experiences of profound conversations where connection is the norm, where there isn't "gee, incredible snow" or "how many inches of rain have we had" but instead is peppered with soul and meaning, literature and deep inquiry without competition or judgment but curious love.

I desire to have opportunities for soulful leadership in 2011. I have been a leader probably since I started to crawl but oftentimes avoid it, especially in the last few years. Enough of that. I am going to see 2011 as a time for embracing soulful leadership and since my theme for the year is "Abondanza!" this is one of those areas where I am claiming abundant growth in many ways... again, specifics will come later.

I desire to create performances that moves beyond "Watch me" and move into "Join me." This is a natural for me and I learned through my training with the Teaching Artists program it is a preferred method. It is so natural and I so love it... moving folks from their comfort zone and into the groove of "let's see what we can make that couldn't be made if any of us were not participating.

and finally I desire to create Abondanza from each and all of it.

Abondanza is my theme for 2011 - the one I came up with on Day 1 of Reverbing.

 I feel peaceful when I think of abondanza. Freedom from anxiety or worry or any "over drama" stuff.

And 10 new things I can do or think to feel peaceful abondanza and freedom today-

1. Poems and Coffee - Well, I actually worked on creating a product today - -

This is for Reverb readers only to see... we are talking bare bones right now but if you are curious download some free audio poetry from me and check out what my friend Natily inspired in me the other day. I am calling it something like: Poems with Your Morning Coffee - Percolating Audio Love Daily:

2. Collaborative Poetry/Sculpture for Visible Poetics

3. Get the word out about the January Writing Camps

4. Audition for only shows that fit this criterion. If the show/role doesn't fit for goodness sakes don't do it. Look to complete theater sabbatical from June 2011 to June 2012.

5. Write, free write, free write.

6. Breathe slowly when stress rises. Be the friend I am to others to myself.

7. Smile when people say "Wow, you are so busy" and recognize it isn't a criticism, it is a witness. And remember, you thrive under a busy schedule. Some people don't, I do. Practice Mona Lisa smiling, in fact, as much as possible.

8. Practice asking soul questions on Twitter, Facebook and in every conversation.

9. Work on art, daily, even if for five minutes. Put some glue on poetry ammo boxes today!

10. Read Poet's Manifesto and grow toward progress there. Remember, today will be over in less than 24 hours. Relish what it is, now. Relish what it is now.

I feel peaceful abondanza. I love lists. I need to choose to spend my love well. Always. There is never a shortage of love in my heart, ever. Remember, spend love well. Feel peaceful abondanza. Shared abondanza. Even just restating Abondanza feels good.  

Say it with me, aloud: Abondanza. Abondanza. Abondanza.....

Ordinary Joy. Sacred Mundane. Transcendent Cog in the Machine. #Reverb10

 
Ordinary joy could be the title of my life story. Sacred mundane. Passionate silence. Urban nature. Transcendent Cog in the Machine. Prairie Mountaintop.

This year is like many of the preceding years: celebrations of soul moments lacing up the sneakers of my life.

The heartbeat of celebration lives in the mundane, the ordinary.

The coffee meeting the empty cup in the darkness before dawn morning.

The almost daily wave to a neighbor who I have never met who drives past in his semi-beat-up, semi-restored red Ford pickup truck. He ambles by, smoking a cigarette not unlike I sit, drinking coffee with a pencil or pen in hand, scribing in my notebook. We wave to one another, contented and grateful to share our mutual landscape.

Our culture too often seeks solace in the celebration of the bigs while I, in my counter cultural everyday life has come to know solace seeks me, seeks you, seeks the guy driving the beat up Ford and the mail carrier and everyone we encounter - - yes, solace seeks us in celebrating the birth of ordinary joy, everyday.

We choose, every day, to be born into ordinary joy or not. I prefer the ordinary joy. The sacred mundane. The passionate silence. The giggling cacophony. The handfull of soil in a land of concrete. Yes, even in the Transcendent Cog in the Machine.

I was writing this blog post in my notebook this morning while simultaneously doing Monday morning post holiday chores. I had walked through the house from my front porch writing desk and was completely grooving with the lingering smell of pancakes and coffee, countertop cleaner and dish soap as I went to answer the relentless call of the laundry. It was a half an hour or more before I sat back at my notebook.

I turned the page and across the top, my nineteen-year-old daughter-home-for-Winter-break had visited my notebook in my absence and had written, "I love you, Mommy."

Tears filled my eyes.

Ordinary Joy.

I'm loving each and every minute of it.

 

What ordinary joy have you experienced today?

 
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How Could I Have Forgotten My Soul Fling with Pumpkin Ravioli? #reverb10

Our ecstatic connection was brief.

I was on a solo journey from Bakersfield to Tucson to see my daughter perform with the Western Regional Honor Choir and I had a four hour Amtrak layover in Los Angeles. Rather than sit around Union Station,  I decided to hop on the Metro Rail to Universal City Walk, since I had never been there before.

It was an adventure within an adventure which lead me to the most lusty meal of my year. One food-relationship memory that sat, unforgotten, until a fellow #Reverb10 writer, Vanessa,  mentioned the magic word: Pumpkin ~ and I remembered.

Pumpkin Ravioli at Wolfgang Puck's... I believe it was bistro. Some Wolfgang Puck's establishment along City Walk. Oh, this was so delectable.

I wrote and I ate and I wrote and I probably texted at least one person telling the tale of the pumpkin ravioli. It is unlike me to not share such food ecstacy.

My caption on this one on Flickr says "Pumpkin-licious" ~ oh, yes.

It was. Pumpkin-licious.

Yummmmmmmm ~~~~

How I adore adventures within adventures...

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Soulfood Moments: Sorry (ashamed!) to admit, only moments of memory in 2010 #reverb10

December 26 Reverb 10 Prompt– Soul Food: What did you eat this year that you will never forget? What went into your mouth & touched your soul? (Author: Elise Marie Collins)

This prompt made me realize I haven't been very mindful in the food department this year.

This may be why my body lately has been begging me to drink more water and eat more fresh veggies and fruit.

Seriously, my belly and I sat down last night (before I read the prompt) and had a deep conversation about the shallowness of our connection lately. We are up for changing that in 2011 and beyond, believe me.

When I read the prompt before going to sleep I had visions of past food ecstacy - I have taken my sense of taste and my experience of food delight seriously in the past. I think this year there was just too much of a year stuffed into my 365 days... so a couple moments stick out.

Yes, I am ashamed to admit, we are only talking moments.

I had some fascinating tomatoes while in Northampton, Massachusetts. I was couchsurfing with Emma after we dropped Katherine at Smith. Our hosts stopped by a farmer's veggie and fruit sales booth - lovely old school places and in New England? Especially heavenly to me... even though I live in an Ag Playground in Central California, we live in Cotton and Carrot country. And dairy. Not many small farms with a wide variety of tomatoes, so there, popped into my mouth, a unique-to-me orange tomatoe.

It was like a mini-appetizer on the pathway to heaven.

Other than that, my greatest culinary moment was discovering the cheapy peppermint mocha at McDonald's, made half strength on the chocolate and peppermint, was perfection and much better than the expensive coffee places.  This happened by pure accident on the way to San Bernardino in a place called Pearblossom, California on State Route 138, a small country road slicing through California. I love that small country roads still exist, even in California. Makes me almost as happy as the peppermint mocha, made perfect.

My belly is looking forward to December, 2011, when it can tell you of yummy fresh veggies, perhaps even some grown by me, being made into intriguing and unique flavor fests. Hmmm. Tasty Vision!

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The Photo which Holds "Me" the Best: Thank you, Michelle and #Reverb10

Reverb Prompt of the Day - December 25 – Photo – a present to yourself

Sift through all the photos of you from the past year. Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where, and what it best reveals about you.

(Author: Tracey Clark)

I read this prompt and didn't have to do a moment of sifting, I knew immediately the photo would be "Bliss in the River" taken by Michelle Guerrerro on an outing to the Kern River last Spring when the icy cold mountain snow run off was filling the waters of my beloved Kern River as it runs through the Kern Canyon.

I had several changes of clothes, so I knew I could "afford" to do this shot.

The river calls to me and I have no choice but to respond, it is as simple as that.

"Divinity calls me and I have no choice but to respond."

That is what this photo says to me.  Michelle orchestrated the arms up with the fabric in the air, but the pure joy on my face is bliss-in-the-moment, which is how I aim to live each and every day.

2011 calls me to live like this photo, each and every day. Bliss in the Moment. Abondanza in 2011.

= = = =

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Just Another Christmas Eve in Bakersfield

The Christmas I was pregnant with Samuel I listened to "The Preacher's Wife" CD over and over again, blaring from the CD Player inside my Chevy Astrovan. I had a cold. Whenever I had a coughing spree, I would pee in my pants a little bit. It got so bad I started wearing sanitary napkins so I would stop worrying about it all the time.

I yawn and lean back in my chair that is my porch desk's companion. I listen as I remember. A close by chirp of a small bird. A lusty jay in a neighbor's yard shouts. A siren travels from block-to-block-to-block. A leaf blower, a hair dryer, tires massaging the asphalt. My thumb breathes on the whiteness stretching across the page.

 I think of the poem I wrote earlier, with Samuel by my side.

Sun rays, heated, on my cheek and warm my closed eye-lid. I see Flagstaff, then, and remember that long ago Christmas.

 

Katherine is re-rooting herself here. I listen as she walks through the back door. Singing, she searches for herself among the items in the garage and the oak trees.

I think about the gifts I wanted to buy that I have yet to buy. I see my neighbor's grown daughter seeking escape from her former house.

I remember the last time I spent Christmas with my extended family. It was 1989. I was pregnant with Marlena. We never spend Christmas together again. Each year I remember and the sadness creeps away a little bit. I miss my family at this time of year and am working (and praying!) to keep my family connected even if one of them has the bad fortune to have a baby die.

Today Samuel and I talked about it. "You want to live on the same street as me when I am grown up?"

You betcha, Samuel. This all across the country scattering of family doesn't work for me.

Just another Christmas Eve.

Further Evidence ~ Yes, Everything is going to be OK. #Reverb10

Reverb 10 December 24 Prompt – Everything’s OK:

What was the best moment that could serve as proof that everything is going to be alright? And how will you incorporate that discovery into the year ahead?

(Author: Kate Inglis)

I remember when I lived in Los Angeles there was a talk radio show where the hosts would use the expression, EGBOK. It stood for "Everything is going to be ok."  Usually I believed them.

This year was fraught with the stress of transitions and the frustration of incompletions followed by... wow, momentum is building and sliced loops are knitting themselves together due to work I had done just because it was work to be done. Not that I was being overly strategic or trying, I had simply built blocks and taken steps one-at-a-time and as 2010 came to a close, these blocks started to stack up.  I had numerous moments of "Everything is going to be ok" and dare I say, exceptional moments of relief and "everything is going to be more than ok."

The biggest, though, involves Samuel and his educational needs.

Since Fall, 2007, the tenuous nature of Samuel and "Free and Appropropriate Public Education" has consistently played in the background of my mind.

The public school system failed him, miserably, during kindergarten and when I pulled him out of first grade and insisted they do better, I didn't make many friends at first. I look back at the reports that were written then and they make me sound like a certifiable quack parent. I don't feel compelled to catalog the system's failure at this stage, but let's just say from my perspective many unforgiveables took place at my son's expense.

I am not sure when the "a-ha" happened that the three year recertification was due ~ this is when the system comes back in and decides whether or not your child still qualifies for Special Education services. Samuel wasn't using much in the way of Special Education services. He is mainstreamed full times, has only rare behavior issues and besides some on-going language processing issues which are being addressed by his speech/language specialist and his general education teacher who has a background as a developmental reading specialist, he doesn't receive services.

Yet the place where he had been in school since first grade, the support network we had created - it all was working.

The previous year there had been talk about pulling him back into our neighborhood school, which may have been fine but it was unfamiliar territory and I didn't have a positive history with the place.

I went as far as to make an appointment with the Principal there to see the classrooms and discuss Samuel's educational history with her.

When the School Psychologist called me to chat about the assessment, I immediately went on alert from my scalp to my toes.

The alert lasted from the first phone call until the IEP eight weeks later.

This man sounded so reasonable, it just didn't seem real. The educational psychologists I had known unfortunately didn't have such poise and certainly didn't ever seem to have Samuel's best interest in mind. I have one school psychologist in our district who gets visibly shaken whenever we are in the same room. He is afraid of me. It is strange, since I am normally a very easy-going person. This man, however, did harm to my child. I am working on forgiving him, but it is still difficult going. Perhaps in 2011 that will heal as well.

At the IEP this new-to-us school psychologist's reports had me in proud tears at first. Samuel's math scores were way above grade level. He was in the ninety seventh percentiles. He was a personable child. He was liked. He was devoted to his own learning.

And then he went on to discuss his weaker areas ~ and his success beyond what his scores showed. He shouldn't be doing as well with his reading comprehension as he is, but he surprises the results.

He works hard and is mindful when he works. He doesn't break down in tears of frustration in the classroom like he did last year.

The psychologist agreed he was doing wonderfully AND he was concerned about the details: his handwriting, his sensory integration issues that resulted in Samuel's one annoying behavior.

The psychologist double teamed the occupational therapist not to pull away services but to add services. The psychologist said, "This program is working. I see no reason to change it."

This decision means Samuel will end his elementary school experience at the same school he has attended since first grade.

I could not be happier.

The next night I sat at the Winter Concert and watched Samuel playing Saxophone and participating in a reading of "Twas the Night Before Christmas." To an outsider, it was impossible to tell he was on the Spectrum. The girls that surrounded him during the reading knew to give him the slightest extra direction, but as I have watched girls and boys in this age group, this is normal behavior whether one is neurologically atypical or not.

Things may be challenging along the way, but with the confidence Samuel is continuing to develop, I know everything will be ok for him.

The other momentum builders: the rewards for the step-by-step, continuing and consistent work I have been doing, also tell me things will be fine and even better than "just alright." The increased professional opportunities as a Teaching Artist, my performance schedule, my blossoming visual arts creative exploration and the February opening of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof are all further evidence.

I am grateful. EGBOK, many times over.