Whenever anyone asks me what project I am working on now, my passion cuts through the air like a swashbuckler’s sword. I usually need to pull myself away from conversation. I worry about being annoying, as I was raised to not be a bother to others, first and foremost.
When I saw the announcement of April’s A to Z challenge I leaped to it. I said, “It is the perfect excuse to get it out there and just possibly attract others who love women and literature as much as I do!” This is true whether it is fiction, nonfiction, poetry, essays – for me it is the passion rather than anything else that attracts me.
I am also doing a concurrent visual arts project. Whenever I show my pages to people they have different suggestions. “You can make it into a book!” people usually say. Yes, I can. Or I can make it into visual art display, which is my plan.
Sometimes I think I can do both. Or I will do both.
The sword may have a wider slice than I originally imagined.
I hope you will follow along with this adventure both in the month of April and beyond.
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 -
I have been writing along with the folks at the Scintilla Writing Project and I thought this would be the perfect time to write about what I love about Bakersfield. I have lived here for more than 20 years now, but have said for a long time "I am ready to move on!"
I attended an event Sunday and a young man and fellow artist asked me, "What do you like about Bakersfield?" It took me a while. I said, immediately, "My friends..." and then stopped before building up the tiniest amount of momentum. This is a quiet thank you to this town I have been a part of for two decades now.
The Bluffs
Hart Park (and the birds/ducks that live & travel through there.)
Goose Loonies
The Art and Spirituality Center at Mercy Hospital
Downtown Bakersfield in general
Kern Bike Path & Parks along the Kern Bike Path
The Kern River both with and without water
Dagny’s
Valley Achievement Center
Zingo’s
Trouts
Blooming trees in Spring
Bakersfield Museum of Art
Bakersfield College Choir
East Bakersfield High School (including STELLAR faculty members there – Ms. Lapp, Ms. McCabe, Mr. Hamm, Mr. Bema, Ms. Shilling, Mr. Lollar, Ms. Odlin, Ms. Sorkin, to name a few.)
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 -
My favorite method is not to use a brush or a pencil, if at all possible.
Sunday I created a piece I call “Dividing Line” at a Grief-Art workshop at the Art and Spirituality Center at Mercy Hospital in Bakersfield. The piece doesn’t feel finished yet though it will be on display in an upcoming art show. Perhaps, like grief and like the General Assembly at the United Nations, it is never finished, it is just experienced differently.
I closed my eyes in the making of it.
I started in a much more organized manner. I didn’t know what I was doing with pastels as I have never used them much in the past. I started with a white pastel on the black paper. I moved it back and forth, soon discovering I liked to use the chalk on its side more than using it like a pencil or pen.
It was a large piece of paper and I was using my non dominant hand. Up and down and all across the page in circles and colors and sweeps. I crashed into the end of the table cloth and my chalk seered down the edge, tracing the stitching of the table cloth.
It jolted me.
I adored it.
This is how I have been taught to grieve: behind a line, behind a veil, in a space where no one else might be made uncomfortable by the rawness of my emotions.
How many times have we heard it at a funeral? When the family members are stoic and showing no emotions, we say “Oh, they are doing so well!” Maybe we should say “Are they on too much medicine to feel the service? Will they remember it at all? Do they have a safe place to express their loss?”
Yes, we all grieve differently.
I am a loud, active, deep feeling, very reflective griever.
I respect each of our methods of grief.
What was difficult for me when I was younger is I never had any grief models. I was never allowed to go to funerals. I didn’t get to talk about loss or death. I remember when the call came in that my grandfather died, I was with my mother. I looked at her with an odd, six-year-old excitement, “Should I go tell Daddy?”
I still don’t know how he was told.
I still don’t know how he responded. He was in the midst of a worsening relationship with alcoholism though.
I do know when I facilitated my brothers Celebration of Life nearly forty years later, all the grievers stood in a circle, holding hands, as we remembered John. Katherine, my daughter, said my father’s hand shook with grief as she held it. I am so grateful he was able to express his grief and I am so grateful my daughter was able to fully witness it without fear or anxiety or judgment.
If I had been faced with raw grief like that at her age then – fifteen – I would have been frightened. I had no exposure.
Now I feel like a grief expert of sorts. It isn’t a title I enjoy claiming, but I do value it as an integral part of who I am as a member of the human community.
(I felt this was also appropriate to post as a part of my weekly Creative Every Day 2012 Check In)
Today's prompt wasn't one that caused an immediate: "Yes, Yes, I'll blog about that!" chorus, racing around the musicality of my mind. Instead I thought, "There is nothing I don't blog about" and went about some of my early morning routines. The "untalkaboutable" that came to me so strongly as I did some early morning art work is one that is difficult to write and talk about on multiple levels. I'm taking a deep breath now....
Today’s (Optional) Writing Prompt:
What are some things you wish you could blog about but can’t?
I can barely talk about it. The idea of blogging about it makes it even worse.
What if one of those people reads it?
The thing about blogging is it is inherently risky. Anyone out there may read your words.
I remember back when people started to publicly let me know they were reading my blog about eight years ago. It is great to have an audience, but another part of me cringes and tries to be protective.
I used to have a tough time writing poetry about autism. It hurt too much. Poetry tends to pierce, anyway, so I just couldn’t bring myself to be so sparce and so truthful with so few words.
Lately my big blogging no-no is talking about how much I miss church.
The majority of my friends do not attend church and think most Christians are nutty, dogmatic, over-the-top lunatics who gasp loudly with judgment every time someone accidentally burps aloud. I am serious: it is frightening. I have more than one friend who isn’t a Christian who tells me I am their only Christian friend. I am the only “normal” one they say.
Yet among my Christian friends, I don’t exactly feel welcomed, especially if I tell them what I really feel about the way they have taken Christ’s message and spun it according to their very human needs and agendas.
Nonetheless, I miss worshipping in community. I miss the hugs, the smiles, the encouragement.
I miss those who are sincere.
I miss the earnest expressions of faith.
I miss those who do question and are intellectually curious.
I miss the meaningful discussions that sometimes arose during Bible Study.
I need to find a congregation who truly knows the meaning if “love one another” and “the greatest of these is love”.
Well, I’ve said it.
If some of my former church family happen upon this post, I miss many of you.
I wish I felt comfortable returning.
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.
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.
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 -
Some of my regular blog readers have read I am participating in the A to Z Blog Challenge. I tried it last year and quite frankly, didn't do very well. This year, I am preparing early. I have chosen a theme that stirs me to my soul: lesser known women writers. The excitement I feel has also made me want to reach out and hug anyone else participating.
Seriously. To borrow from Roberto Begnini, "I want to hug (ok, he said make love) to all of you!"
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 -
Scintilla Prompt: What are your simplest pleasures?
I first spotted them when they peered into my kitchen window while I was doing some mundane task like cleaning the counter or putting clean dishes away.
I sensed something… different. I looked out the window into their faces. Their black eyes seemed to pierce me. To say I was thrilled to see them perched on my bird feeder is not even close to describing how I felt.
My gasp echoed against the white walls of the kitchen and skittered into the open kitchen cabinets. Once I gained composure, I stood completely still.
The birds blinked at me, silently. I blinked at them, silently.
I moved slowly with the intention to take a photo, but I had to get my camera first. One false step and… they flew away.
They started to hang around my yard regularly after that: we had communed, we had fallen in definite interest if not love.
I continued to seed my yard with cracked corn and seeds, feeding many of my neighborhood birds but primarily seeking to please them. I saw them standing on a power line. I saw them walking around my lawn, snacking. I noticed their greyness and their black polka dots.
Then I saw one of them, alone, snacking.
“Where is your friend?” I asked, hoping the bird wouldn’t feel sorrowful with my perhaps too personal inquiry.
He or she blinked at me. “Perhaps back at the nest?”
I stood perfectly still, waiting for the bird to come closer. I was as statue-esque as my 5 foot 4 inch, rounder than thin body would allow me.
The bird came closer. I stood, breathing as softly as I could.
I noticed the belly that I thought was grey was actually peach as the sun set. I noticed her whole underbelly was a tranquil peach rather than a drab grey. Her tail was flecked with black. Here eyes were still piercing as she slowly snacked and got closer to me.
A green-blue Saturn Vue drove to my curb. I knew it held my son, Samuel, inside. I knew it was more than likely Samuel would come upon this scene with a tremendous amount of ten-year-old vigor. I prepared myself for separation from this feathered conversation.
I smiled at Samuel who raced by me, scaring the bird, and not even thinking it was a strange thing for Mommy to do, stand in the front yard, transfixed by a winged friend.
Emma, my fourteen-year-old daughter says, “Oh, yeah, my Mom is one of those crazy bird ladies.”
I can’t help myself. It is a delight to come to know my neighborhood birds. Once when I was completely alone and crying late at night with the window open, my most compassionate companion was a mockingbird who sang with me as I cried. Ever since then I have always honored my neighborhood birds.
I am as grateful for their presence than I am for some of my other neighbors presence, actually!
Simple pleasures… endless curiosity and fascination. My bird friends.
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 -
“I love bright words, words up and singing early; Words that are luminous in the dark, and sing; Warm lazy words, white cattle under trees; I love words opalescent, cool, and pearly, Like midsummer moths, and honied words like bees, Gilded and sticky, with a little sting.”
Elinor Wylie
Yesterday was World Poetry Day. I enjoyed the fresh rounds of tweets flying through my twitter page. People are actually chatting up POETRY. I can enjoy that.
I decide this day is the perfect day to play with words alongside a newly discovered poet from the early parts of our last century.
Elinor Wylie declares,
“I love bright words, words up and singing early
I respond:
"I love orange, robust and headlights in the grey just before light sky
I love the lark, wren, mockingbird, Katherine and Emma
Words that are luminous in the dark, and sing; "I love running grunions, highway reflectors, halo
Raw emotions echoing from the other side of the gorge"
Warm lazy words, white cattle under trees;
"Flies buzzing close to my ear, tepid water, meandering, patient
Smelling somewhere between wheat and decompensation"
I love words opalescent, cool, and pearly,
Bernadette’s birth stone ring, showing its colors as we stand forehead to forehead under the awnings at Glen Ridge Middle School
Marble bench at Forest Lawn or Sleepy Hollow or the Graveyard of your choice
An Alpha Phi wearing a couple grands worth of a smile, counting her strand of careful, tasteful white buds of clams and a brain as deep as a coffee filter
Like midsummer moths, and honied words like bees
Gilded and sticky, with a little sting.
Slightly crass, tasteless with a need for constant polish
Dried maple syrup on plastic plates and the slap
After the mosquito who just dined on my forearm.
###
Word~love continues to course through me. Now World Poetry Day is over and we only have a few days (and poems?) until the celebration of National Poetry Month begins.
Love your words. Your words will love you right back. And perhaps, like me, you will find yourself singing with a “long gone” poetess. We poets, after all, are never truly absent. Our words always remain.
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 -
I decided to join the A-Z Blog Challenge this year with a lot more thought than last year.
I have a certain amount of pure delight when it comes to challenges: I think I was born to play games and to just have fun. Maybe more than the average person or maybe I am just aware of the thrill of challenges and label them “fun” rather than “daunting” than the average person I encounter.
Last year I failed. Miserably.
This year, I have a plan. I have a theme. I have a list. And I have a PASSION about the theme and plan.
I have started to write. I will probably have at least a couple posts ready to go come April 1 today. Who knows how far I will get before April 1 arrives.
Are you curious about my topic?
I should say NERD ALERT now, so you won’t feel the compulsion to cross your eyes and scratch your head and say, “Seriously? Does she think anyone in their right minds would be interested in that topic?”
Well. I am. And I know there must be others. And perhaps, if you are stirred by passion even if you know ZIP about my topic, I truly hope you will come visit during April to see what I am cooking up.
With all that said: I am going to feature a short (300 word or less) biography of a literary woman each day during the month of April. I am focusing primarily on the lesser known women writers. I love Emily Dickinson, for example, as much or more than the rest of you, but she HAS her admirers.
There are so many other deserving women out there, waiting to be read and understood and revered.
I am so excited to write these, to share these, and to get to know my visitors who I am trusting will catch the passion I have for not only the literature that was created but for the women themselves.
I am compiling my list AND I am always happy for more recommendations. Do you know of any literary women (across genre, I have essayists, poets, novelists, playwrights so far...) you would either like to learn more about or that you would like to have featured here? Please comment below with the names OR email me - juliejordanscott at gmail dot com.
I know I look forward to reading YOUR passion, all those who are involved in the A-Z challenge.
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 -
She asked, "What do you wish would spring into your life?"
What a grand wishcasting prompt.
Spring is here. The reawakening has begun. I feel renewed and revigorated with a bit of holiness no a covering of sacred holiness. Ohhhh, beloved gratitude. You are here.
So, what do I wish would spring into my life?
More time spent consciously.
More time to write, to work on my art projects, to spend with friends (perhaps while writing and working on art projects.)
Just writing these words delight me.
I can feel them taking root and form and throwing light out over everything that chooses to spring up, even those “things” I have no idea are about to pop, I just know whatever wonderfulness (or stuff clothed in ‘what the heck is that!’) will be fine companions on this part of the journey.
Now, beloveds, What do you wish would spring into YOUR life?
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 -
I don’t know if you will recognize yourself in these words.
You are so adept at covering all you do in spiritual-ese, in “oh, I am obviously so much better than” and “Oh, those poor, horrible, aren’t they embarrassing souls” that you probably would be shocked to see me writing you a letter and calling you a bully.
Perhaps bully doesn’t fit exactly, and neither does aggressor-well, now that you mention it….
I mentioned recently there was still unfinished business I wanted to talk to you about. Over the next couple days you made contact, set up a time for us to spend time together and promptly scheduled something over that time. It’s weird, because you texted me at 11 pm saying “Yes, tomorrow morning!” and when I called you at 8:45 that morning, you had plans for 9:30 which I intuitively knew would last until morning’s edge.
The good thing is I had been prepared for that to happen since you have made it a habit of not showing up.
I actually found it amusing rather than upsetting. I rejoiced to discover there was no longer a power issue between us. I had lost the ability to care or value what choices you make.
Today I am waiting for you to over schedule the time we had arranged for today at the end of last week.
I haven’t heard a peep since we had perhaps the most ego-based conversation we have ever had to date. No, the entire world does not worship you, dear one. The entire world doesn’t crumble when you are not there – in the space of whomever you believe is so in desperate need of you.
I thought the repetitive phone calls to me were to discuss you had an epiphany about showing up, or maybe you wanted to just talk with me, but when you revealed the true nature of your curiosity, it was like being branded: skin blistered and boiled but painless.
I suppose my skin had been pre-numbed from the conversation I had earlier in the day when I relived some of the raw, deep pain you gifted me with five and four and three years ago now.
You took when I didn’t want you to take. You bullied your way into sacred places that are mine and are still mine and never were yours, even though you might have thought they were yours.
If you want your way into places like that, you must wait for the invitation.
I know now I won’t be issuing an invitation to you.
Sadly, I have a pretty good idea you will continue your pattern of circling females who appear to fit your desires. You are great at being the quintessential, romantic, sweeping women off their feet with your quasi-feminine spirituality. I heard my mouth say “like a wolf in sheep’s clothing”. It was a whisper and it was a prayer of protection for the others who find their way into your path.
You’ll label it “spiritual evolution” for them or “vast shamanic insights” perhaps even “service for the greater good of the world.”
I label it BS. Scum sucking garbage. Denial. Robbery. Abuse. Misogyny. Extreme Self Centeredness (on steroids.)
I realized the other day you are living “your truth” because you actually can’t see these other realities.
It truly is just fine you do that.
Just know you are one snake who will never again charm me.
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 -
Recent Comments