Julie Unplugged

Reassurance: Alice Walker (and I) Learn to Love the Questions, as Rilke Said #AugustBreak Day 21

 

It was early June I first read Alice Walker’s Poem, “Reassurance.” I didn’t read it in the conventional way, in a book, I read it on the sidewalk. Berkeley’s version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame is a Poetry Walk, with famous and not-so-famous poems lining the sidewalk on Addison Street between Shattuck and Milvia. I was convinced it wouldn’t be all that great, after all, I bet there would be more male poets than women, I thought.

I walked down Addison street looking at my feet, reading. Laughing, crying, photographing. I ooohed and ahhhhed and counted how many male poets and how many female poets.

I was wrong.

I was moved, I was delighted. Through some of the poetry, I was changed.

Alice Walker’s poem was the one I have held onto this Summer as I waited for the big transition which begins tomorrow to take form. Emma is starting high school. Samuel is back into a school he started in May due to having some fairly significant problems at his old school following four very successful years.

I have spent much of the Summer in a fairly even keeled manner but lately I have felt emotionally rocked and rolled.

Yesterday I facilitated a writing group at a local hospital’s Art and Spirituality Center. We used Alice Walker’s words paired with Rilke’s famous quotation about questions:

“Have patience toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves  like locked rooms and books written in a foreign language. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now.”

Rainer Rilke

Here are a couple questions I poked and prodded.

“What can I do, as a mother, to help my children through these transitions?”

I’ve done all I possibly could, short of being a helicopter parent which I won’t do.

“What can I do, as a mother, to feel peace with whatever happens to either of them, since it their path is their path and my path is my path and I can’t walk their path for them?”

There is the question to live.

How may I effectively encourage Emma, Samuel and Katherine to fully live their life path?

 

  Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot

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© 2011
Julie Jordan Scott

#SOCSunday: On Being a Subject of Art & The Moral of the Story is....

I sometimes fail, well, most of the time fail, to recognize what I am good at as anything extraordinary. I just do what I do without giving it much thought.

Here I am, this is what I do, I do it.

I do study technique and learn from others, but for the most part, I leap into the void of “what will be the best method right now for this group of people” and away we go.

Yesterday I lead a writing group at a local Art and Spirituality Center. I decided I would use the Cinquain poetry form to help the writers get to know each other better. The participants buddied up (specifically with people they didn’t know) and interviewed each other with specific questions.

From the information they gathered, they wrote a Cinquain poem about their new friend.

I wasn’t sure how it would go: this taking a stranger and making them a subject of art.

I trusted it would build community. That is another skill I have that I don’t even know entirely how I do it, I just know I do it. Give me a room of people brand new to each other and within a half-hour, people are comfortable with one another. I don’t even recognize this as unique.

I do recognize it as valuable.

Earlier this week, I was also a subject of art.

A local artist in Bakersfield facebooked me saying he had made a painting of me and if I wanted it, I would need to go to the public place he was setting it out and pick it up. This was odd and new to me, though I have been the subject of art in the past, never by someone random at a time I didn’t expect it.

It is part of being involved in the local arts community: other artists take notice.

In class yesterday, no one knew when they arrived they would soon be a subject of art, they just hoped for breakthroughs. Everyone had one experience and many had both.

I know underneath all of this is a brilliant moral of the story, but my five minutes are up.

Time is gone.

I pray THAT is not the moral of the story.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
• Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
• Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
• Link up your post below.
• Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

 

  Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot

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Julie Jordan Scott

Crosses of Rememberance Overlooking the Mojave on Route 66: #AugustBreak Day 20

I don’t know who you are, yet I stop to remember you. I hold that remembrance close, three days later.

Did you die in an accident, a missed turn, a moment of going over this overlook?

Admiring, perhaps, the majestic nature in this Mojave Desert scene and in a moment of oversight, you got too close to the admiration?

Someone loves you enough to come back here, to leave crosses with vivid Orange flowers which shout “Life!” in this very spot. I couldn’t help but look there as well as at the buttes and cactus and far reaching sky, its hands touching my face, its fingers pointing to the crosses saying “Look, people died here, remember. Life is sacred.”

You are sacred. We are sacred.

Maybe that is the message the Desert Sky was giving me.

My children waited in the car while I snapped some photos in the blistering August heat. They were restless, so I thought, as they stayed still in the car, unmoving toward the destination of Nana and Grandpa. I wanted to stay longer.

If it was Winter, I would have sat down and chatted with you, to get more of an image in my mind.

These crosses don’t bear your names.

They only bear orange – a word without rhyme – and a flower. Otherwise, they have the pure whiteness which makes me wonder if you were young, with much of your life unspent before it was left behind, accidentally.

I think of googling “death on Route 66) but I don’t. Instead I sit for one last minute, paying close attention to my breath as it reaches in and out, in and out, in and out.

I feel this gift of being able to breathe rising and falling in my chest.  I consider two crosses bearing an orange flower in the desert, looking upon the desert view.

My steps felt different as I stepped back into the van and put it into drive.

My fingers feel different as I finish this essay.

Two crosses + orange flowers + view of the Mojave Desert = Life Changed.

 

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Julie Jordan Scott

Raising the Roof: #AugustBreak Day 19

This may be my favorite photo so far from this month of August:

Samuel, Katherine, Daddy, Emma celebrating after lunch in the Forest somewhere outside Williams, Arizona.

 

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Julie Jordan Scott

#FlashFriday: What is More Real?

It has been six days since I woke up early to write here, at my keyboard. The enormity sat in the space between me and the keyboard. I felt the need to write differently. When I found this Flash Fiction visual prompt from Madison Woods, I knew this is how I would begin my return to my writing porch.

"Facing Cliff" by Juan "One" Sepulveda

= = = =

“None of this is real,” Gloria said, her arm sweeping across the scene, diva-like.  Breezes from her  bell-sleeve were an alarm clock for sleeping birds.

Her friend, Beth, quietly breathed beside her.

Gloria attempted to hide the tree’s feminine  spine  with her apathy tinged anger.
Three minutes of spacious silence nudged Beth to walk to the edge of the fissure. She spoke to the barren branches tempting death across the divide, “What is more real than fear, than loss, than holding on with all your might until you finally have the courage to let go?”

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Julie Jordan Scott

Sunflowers in the Deep Blue Eyed Sky ~ #AugustBreak #13

This morning I went on a long awaited artist date primarily to photograph some flowers I had noticed when bicycling with Samuel. I wanted to see them, record them, remember them and learn from them in the early morning light.

I was afraid it was too late when I got there. It was nearly 7 am. I had set my alarm at an earlier time, but since I have not been very talented at getting up after being only asleep for four hours, I stayed in bed an extra hour, hoping the sun would be patient with me.

The sun tends to do his own thing, not caring if I want the perfect shot or need to overcome years of jealousy of my sister.

It wasn’t going to change its trajectory to please me.

When I arrived at the park and hiked around seeking flower models, I noticed the light was perfect. The sky, a soulful blue. The conditions, the colors were absolutely just right.

I snapped. I snapped. I snapped.

I felt that profound level of contentment that  comes from following through on a hope, that sweet satisfaction of committing to something and even if the conditions don’t feel perfect, you discover they are perfect.

I wondered for a moment about the name of these flowers. My mind tossed around the possibility of them being sunflowers or black eyed susans.

When I was a little girl I found every reason I could possibly find to be jealous of my sister, Sue.

She had blonde hair. She was thin. She was outspoken and confident.

She had a flower named after her: The Black Eyed Susan.

All I had was a Bobby Sherman song. Remember it? “Julie Do Ya Love Me.”

I was also jealous because my father loved black eyed Susan’s and couldn’t care less about Bobby Sherman.

I wanted a flower named for me.

This morning I finally realized it didn’t matter what flowers were named, they are all also named beautiful.

These flowers, the ones who showed themselves just for me in just the perfect light, are more than likely sunflowers. I don’t have to hold onto childhood jealousy. Letting go feel s so much better than feeling “wrong” about whether or not a flower is named for me.

I smiled into the deep blue eyes of the sky.

 

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#AugustBreak: Day 12 ~ Art Begets Art

Therese and her friends sang last night at Riley's.

I had been at a Poetry Open Mic and then listened to my friend, Missy, play at one of the Concerts by the Fountain at the Marketplace.

By the time I got to Riley's I was so ready to write... so I did...

collected lots of images to use in poetry. I may even write one today...

Proof once again that Art begets Art...

 

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Julie Jordan Scott

After the "Making Do" Was Over ~

I have made do for a long time. Sometimes I forget how long, neglect to claim how long, mark it out of my consciousness. It just sat there: taking up space, not fitting, never fitting, blocking the path but it had to be there.

Until today, when a new refrigerator was delivered that fits in the spot under the cabinets in my kitchen.

When I got the other one, I was an emotional wreck and didn’t think to measure.

I just needed a refrigerator when the other one broke.

I never particularly cared about that cheap, too big, blocking the way refrigerator and it showed.

What a difference it makes to have a refrigerator that fits!

There is no physical blockade or blockage between my purple room and the kitchen, a constant reminder to my unconscious that “this doesn’t fit and it doesn’t matter” which somewhere deep in my gut felt like “you don’t fit and it doesn’t matter” or taken one more deeply, “You, Julie, don’t fit in anywhere (outcast and unloved) and you (you know who I am talking to) don’t matter.”

Most people who know me would shake their heads in disbelief.

“Come on, Julie, you can’t believe that is what  the not-fitting-in-place refrigerator was saying that to you for all these years.”

Well:  yes and no. It didn’t fit and created a physical block in the midst of the homiest part of my home.

Refrigerators don’t actually speak, but since our subconscious works on an image level as well as a language level, I made that refrigerator mean different things on different occasions.

Sometimes it was making do until I could get the frig I really wanted and was perfectly fine for for the time being.

Othertimes it was “why can’t I just fork over the money and buy a frig that fits? What is wrong with me?”

And still other times it was some other version of Self Talk de Jour about having to “squeeze through” spaces  that aren’t meant to be squeezed through at all.

Now there is a wide open, 80 inch walkway I could lie down within, if I chose to do so. All 64 inches of my frame could rest there. I could reach my arms over my head and laugh for several minutes or hours if I wanted to do so. For the first time in at least ten years, I am guessing. I literally cannot remember how long I put up with that not-fitting refrigerator.

This morning I sat at my kitchen table on a conference call in a circle of friends, gazing loosely at the walkway. I looked through my purple room and my work-in-process sunrise-word-love table and through the hallway arch into the living room where Samuel  sat, playing.

There was an invitation within the path my gaze traveled.

The opening, the spaciousness, the forgiveness for allowing the space to be blocked for so long all intermingled.

  Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot

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Julie Jordan Scott

Wednesday #Wishcasting: Following the Inspirational Flow of Creation

I was stumped for a moment when I read Jamie’s Wishcasting Wednesday question. Perhaps a part of it is I am very aware this is the 1300^th post for Julie Unplugged and it feels so momentous.

I am planning a celebration of this event later today with some joyful announcements so my mind wasn’t completely present to the question nor did I “get” it at first, thinking an “inspiration” needed to be a person.

It doesn’t, I discovered rather quickly.

Here is what I discovered – and wished – when I settled into my writing chair and opened my heart.

What inspiration do you wish to follow?

I wish to follow the inspiration from  the natural flow of creation itself rather than from the lack based push of gottas, haftas, shoulds and “well everyone else is creating x,y,z in 1,2,3 time so I must, too!”

Creation doesn’t rush, ever. I want to be conscious and present to this way of being, following examples such as these:

The sun rising and setting

Breath moving in and out of my lungs

My heartbeat: Pahrump Pahrump Pahrump

The seasons and their changing colors, temperatures, movement of the sun in relationship to what time of year it is.

The lowering and raising of the tide

The changing face of the river

Seeds growing where it seems unfathomable they could grow simply because life can not and will not be denied.

My life force shall not and will not be denied.

I wish to remember and be with this inspiration.

What inspiration do you wish to follow?

 

 

    Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot

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Procrastination: Moving Beyond Opinion, Judgment & Just Talking About It #30BBM #AugustBreak

I thrive on challenges, specifically challenges within community. I don’t thrive on challenges where I am competing with others to be #1 and stomp out the other poor schmoes who are attempting to beat me into the ground. Instead I thrive on aiming for excellence alongside others who share my vision for whatever the heck we are working on alone-together.

This month I am participating actively in two online challenges: The August Break (taking a photo daily and doing a mini-check in about it) and 30 Days to Be a Better Me.

Today on 30BBM we are working on procrastination.

There is this table I have been painting since May sitting in Cameron’s living room since… May. I wanted to make a sunrise word-love table for my writing porch, but the woman who taught the class couldn’t catch my vision. It felt like she thought my vision wasn’t up to par, somehow, so  I halted work on it. It sat, unfinished.

I smeared some yellow paint across its top but it wasn’t quite right. I didn’t much like that particular neonish yellow.  I was told if I put more layers I might lose the swirl I liked so much. I don’t know a lot about paint so I let that worry about the swirl halt further painting.

This morning, I smeared it with paint more the yellow I wanted it to have. It was old paint and globby, so it became instantly more textured. I wanted orange and red, too, so after making a couple phone calls I had been putting off, I mixed together some orange from red and yellow and added that to my still swirled now the color yellow I wanted table top.

It is quickly becoming exactly the table I wanted after it sat, being anything but the table I wanted because I worried, I fretted, I let other people’s judgment get in the way of creating exactly what I wanted in the first place.

This has “just right” painted all over it.

 

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This is a reflection fueled by 30 Days to Be a Better Me in August with Celestina Chua ~