Julie Unplugged

Once Upon a Time I Followed Virginia's Advice & Had a Room of My Own. #Scintilla

Lately I have had a consistent rat a tat in my mind drumming out my inner morse
code saying, “Virginia Woolf was right, you need a room of your own… a room of your own… a room of your own…..” The reality is I haven’t had a space of my own for years.

Not since I was in high school, actually.

Lately I’ve been thinking of putting a small house in my backyard as a studio/writing room with a lock on the door, an air conditioner and perhaps a couch and an easy chair.

The primary “room of my own” was the one I originally shared with my sister in our house on Hawthorne Avenue in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. Our room faced this quiet street and directly in front of our window was a pine tree. Occasionally woodpeckers visited that tree so on Summer mornings or Saturday mornings during the school year, I could rest on my side and watch the bird do his thing. It was so peaceful.

Sue and I shared until I was in sixth or seventh grade, sleeping in beds passed down for generations. I used to have a fantasy about sharing this furniture with my daughters, but somehow that didn’t happen. I realize in writing this, I still wish I could have had that furniture for my daughters or my future granddaughters, at this point.

What I remember the most were hours spent in what I called “The Doll Room.”

My sister and I shared the room in our house that was originally meant to be the Master Bedroom. Attached to the Master was a small room with a slanted, attic like ceiling that made it extra cozy for me and my massive assortment of well loved dolls.

I had cast off “real baby” bassinets, make shift cradles and an assortment of other dream-nursery items for the little ones who I fed and changed and eventually used as stand in students when I didn’t have any friends to play school with me. I used the door as the chalk board: these were the days when the new fangled boards were green, not black and a smart board let alone a dry erase board was somewhere in science fiction only.

The room had a strange round hole in one of the corners which I could put my eye against to see into a tiny slice of the family/tv room. It was much more fruitful to put my ear there. I was quite entertained listening when my Dad was watching a football game and would start shouting things like “Atta baby!” as if he was in the stands rather than in our home at 56 Hawthorne Avenue.

This recollection is fascinating me. I remember scrapbooking in the doll room when I was a freshman in high school, but I don’t remember ever bringing a typewriter in there. It would have been the ideal writing room.

If I lived in that house now, I could easily make that room, the Doll room, the room of my own. Its attic qualities stir the romantic in me. Plus I simply loved that once upon a time room of my own.

I wonder if my innocent, everything-will-be-allright-wide-eyed-little-girl-self spirit still sits there, sometimes. I wonder how the view out the small window has changed? I wonder if it is heated now?

I realize once again my longing to visit that home and specifically that unique “mine alone” room remains. This longing makes me content.

It reminds me I am alive.

Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She teaches a teleclass/ecourse "Discover the Power of Writing & Telling Engaging, Enlightening Stories" which begins again March 22, 2012. Find details by clicking this link.

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"Women's Sphere?" Art is Coming to Life, Again: #CED2012 March 19, 2012 Check In

I admit it: I’ve been fired up this week.

I am down to the normal theater load so last Monday morning, I hit my “Women’s Sphere” project and am having so much fun in its renewal I can barely stand myself. Now, if the layers would simply dry faster I would be very, very happy.

This recent fascination started when I read in Wild Unrest: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Making of the Yellow Wallpaper it only took her two days to write this world-changing novella.

Two days. June 6 & June 7, 1890 were the days she wrote during a hot spell in Pasadena. 103 degrees outside, who knows how hot in her cottage, when she decided she wanted to write a book stylistically like Poe with the original sole purpose to make some money for herself and her daughter.

I started paying deep and close attention to Charlotte Perkins Gilman when I realized how many women with depression and other forms of mental illness ended up killing themselves or getting institutionalized. This past Fall I had a difficult period of deep depression myself so I was extra fascinated with the topic.

The major difference here was Charlotte Perkins Gilman had some harrowing experiences with mental illness AND she lived.

She lived.

Through her work she also helped many women, raise awareness, and actually caused some change in the treatment for women with depression.

I have been dying paper, starting with purple. You know what color dye I bought today, I bet. YELLOW. I used paint on my paper before. I love the outcome but I wanted to try something new, a new technique.

I have been writing with friends.

I have been researching more writers.

Now I have been doing the extra fun (for me) stuff: putting the paper I have colored, written on and shared. Other women have used them as prompts. We have coveted words and phrases, doodled and finally took the finished medium – pages are like paint to me -  and upcycled previously used items into art that serves a purpose.

These are tangible reminders to me to make art, to create words, to breathe love and hope onto paper and live.

Right now I am working on a pair of Women’s Sphere? Book ends. Because there is so much waiting between the drying layers, I am not as close to done as I would like, but here is a sneak peek. Sort of a “Before” and an “In the middle”.

 

I am crossing my fingers we will get an “after” before the week is out.

I'm looking forward to checking out your projects this week - and commenting on your blogs with the same passion I am using to create these pieces.

Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She teaches a teleclass/ecourse "Discover the Power of Writing & Telling Engaging, Enlightening Stories" which begins again March 22, 2012. Find details by clicking this link.

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(C) 2012 Julie Jordan Scott

#ROW80 Check In ~ Lessons in Creativity and Word~Love

We have only two more check-ins to go and as this is my final Sunday Check in for this round, I would like to say I have learned more about my process this round than perhaps in the last decade.

I have learned theater is a relentless mistress. My passion and love for words stretches beyond, above and all around my stage work, unless ofcourse I am performing my own words. This past month I came to understand, intimately, how much theater subtracts from my life.

Yes, it enhances but oh, it subtracts. Maybe it is because of my crazy choice to do two shows simultaneously. I have enjoyed both outcomes AND I am glad I did both, but I am taking another theater hiatus.

I will not do theater during the next round of ROW. I am compelled to complete some of my projects and continue what I have started without constantly being torn from my words to memorize someone else’s words or bring someone else’s vision to life.

I have learned my art projects DO enhance my writing. 

I have fallen more deeply in love with my Women’s Sphere? Project. I should say I have ignited my personal fire with it. It feels (excuse me for using such an overused word) awesome.

I am looking forward to our brief respite to assess all my previous goals and do more tweaking before we begin again.

I have enjoyed this quarter VERY much. I am grateful to each and all who have read, commented and supported me. You are appreciated more than these words are able to hold.

Word~Love!

Julie

Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She teaches a teleclass/ecourse "Discover the Power of Writing & Telling Engaging, Enlightening Stories" which begins again March 22, 2012. Find details by clicking this link.

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(C) 2012 Julie Jordan Scott

#SOCSunday: Feeling Into Home ~ Written During #Wordmongering Marathon-Fest

I am participating in a #Wordmongering marathon today. Its going fantastically except the noise around me has become ridiculous, so I am taking a couple hour break.

I wrote this in a five minute sprint during my last half hour - oh, and #wordmongering is also timed writing - but we write for :30 minutes at a time. It isn't all Stream of Consciousness, but a lot of it is "first draft-y". If you're curious, just use the hashtag on twitter to find us at the top of any hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

 

Today’s (Optional) Writing Prompt: How do you feel about where you live?

Last October I did a major, house wide declutter marathon over four days.

Let’s just say I had more clutter than I would like to admit, but it included getting rid of anything that didn’t serve anymore. It included cleaning out the garage, getting rid of old/grimy stuff, tearing up carpeting and the linoleum in the kitchen.

It took a lot of muscle and a lot of food (and beer) to feed the friends who helped.

Since then I have been recreating my home from the floor up.

I have allowed myself to fall in love with my house now. We sort of woo each other. There is a lot of work yet to go, but I finally feel like my house is expressing more of my voice and the voices of my children. I love it that Emma walks into the living room and says, “This room makes me happy” and one of her friends from school wanders in and says, “You have such a pretty living room!”

I actually used power tools when I prepped for painting in this room before they took on the hue of heaven or the sea: your pick. I think it was meant to be nautical but instead it feels like heaven. Perhaps it is because they are the same thing?

I am not completely wild about Bakersfield, but I am here until Emma graduates from high school. That is three years to go now. I am closer to knowing where I would like to go then ever before… this is progress.

I know in the interim my job is to love where I am, deeply, and to make this place an expression of those who live within these walls.

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.
• Link up your post at AllThingsFadra.com
• Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

 

Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She teaches a teleclass/ecourse "Discover the Power of Writing & Telling Engaging, Enlightening Stories" which begins again March 22, 2012. Find details by clicking this link.

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(C) 2012 Julie Jordan Scott

Remember Home Leaving: Choose to Celebrate the Day, the Evening, This Next Adventure #scintilla

I remember my first home leaving.

I was fine as I said goodbye to most of my friends.

It only got to be too much when Sharon said goodbye. We had known each other since we stayed home with our mothers while our older brothers in her case and brothers and sister in my case went off to school. I spent a year at Linden Avenue School before she joined me there.

We hugged and cried primarily because she gave me permission. She cried first.

I was fifteen and my family was off to California, we weren’t sure exactly where but Mom was aiming toward San Diego. She got as far south as Dana Point and that was it. I was home again, briefly.

I remember the night before I left Dana Point. I had one of my first quasi-boyfriends who I liked much more than he liked me. He was a year older and a college student at UC Davis which was near to UOP where I would attend. When we said our goodbyes he called me “Co-ed” and kissed me, lightly on the lips. I remember he touched my face when he did. To this day I love gentle touches to my face while kissing.

I remember when I left UOP. I was sad to leave there. It had been the most fun I had ever had to that point.

I remember when I left Los Angeles for Phoenix and then Phoenix for Los Angeles.

I remember when I left Los Angeles for Frazier Park.

I remember when I left my home in Frazier Park in an emergency trip to the hospital in Bakersfield. I didn’t know that when I crossed that threshold my life would never be the same. My mother greeted me upon my return. It was the first time, and last time, I ever saw her cry. In my life.

I remember when I left that home to move to Bakersfield nearly twenty-two years ago.

I remember when I brought Katherine home when she was two days old. She had spent the previous days in the NICU, just for insurance, they told me. I remember when she and I walked out the door to take her to Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was my brilliant counsel that made her look at women’s colleges. It was my fault she fell in love with this prestigious school and did whatever it took to be accepted.

I remember when I came home without her.

I remember when I brought Emma home. I drove us home from the hospital. I remember when I left home during the day when she was only six weeks old. I grieved again.

I remember when I brought Samuel home from the hospital late in the evening when he was two days old.  It took me six weeks to fall in love with him. This was surreal, even his existence was still surreal. I remember when he came home from school, emotionally battered and bruised, later sexually bruised while at school. I remember when I left home to fight for his safety, to fight for his education, to fight to make it easier for other families. I remember I am still at work for children.

I remember when I leave home daily I have a distinctive purpose to fulfill while I am here. By here I mean the planet Earth. It includes me and is certainly not all about me. Not by a longshot.

When I leave home I look up, toward the sky. I inhale, deeply. I choose to celebrate the day, the evening, this next adventure when I leave home.

 

 

 

 

 

Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is
also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She teaches a teleclass/ecourse "Discover the Power of Writing & Telling Engaging, Enlightening Stories" which begins again March 22, 2012. Find details by clicking this link.

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The Sea of the Tender Heart: Day 3 with #Scintilla. (There is a reason I didn't get to this yesterday)

Synchronicity rocks.Sometimes it shudders, it sways, it tastes salty. .

It is something I say with regularity yet lately, actually, when I think about it, I can’t remember the last time I said it aloud.

I just whispered it into the silent morning: rain falling, my daughter across the room with her laptop on her knees, me, facing a sky blue wall and lacy lavender curtains, wondering what words could possibly come from the end of my fingers when my heart feels this tender.

Synchronicity rocks.

Yesterday morning I was close to bliss at the thought of getting a massage: loosening the kinks, comforting the soreness and chat with Megan, the woman who is my body worker. We tend to have great conversations about topics that intrigue both of us.

It didn’t take long to settle into a conversation about a place we were surprised yet not surprised to both love. She had just been there, she said.

“You were just at the hot springs?” I said, my voice rising. “I haven’t been there in so long. I have wanted to go with a group of women…. It seems like whenever any guys I know want to go up there they get the wrong idea.”

She went on to tell me about a not very positively memorable first date-which-probably-would-have-been-better-as-a-meeting-for-coffee. She said there was a random guy there in addition to her and the woman friend who came with her and the guy she was meeting there.

She said they were having a fine time chatting, all four of them, when I said, “I know this is going to sound like a strange question, but do you know where the random guy came from?”

She blinked and looked into my eyes and said a familiar to me town.

“Oh, that random guy was a friend of mine, Charles.”

“YES!” she said, “It WAS Charles!”

The whole day I had felt my heart warming up in my chest, inexplicably, and in those early moments of conversation it felt like my heart was both tender and dripping, sort of like icycles long frozen started to turn back to fluid rather than solid.

Our conversation turned as did my heart and my belly, which did a flip flop.

I found words coming from deep within me, almost without emotions, as I recounted moments spent with Charles years ago and my perspective, now.

Even writing this is challenging. I had to get up and move around, to shed my jeans and put on sweat pants. I had to put on slippers instead of tight shoes. I had to pull my socks up my legs so the green stripes could hug my calves.

I don’t feel I can handle constriction. It is different than being fearful to speak. It is more like raw or unfiltered and a wrestling session to get it out.

It is raw to speak on paper. It was raw to speak aloud.

My voice sounded numb, without emotions. It held much more breath than usual as I attempted to sort out what I was feeling with what I felt in what felt like centuries ago and what I felt now.

If you had spoken to me twenty four hours ago I would have laughed about how far I have come with my feelings about Charles. I had let go, I said. He didn’t have his hold on me anymore, I said, but when I heard someone I care about speaking of his current behavior and his current way of being, it literally lifted me and took me to our old places to watch the former me engaging with these past moments, kind of like when the Ghost of Christmas Past took Ebenezer to watch after he lost Belle.

Only in this case, I was watching from Belle’s perspective.

I look at my hands, lost again, on the keyboard.

I don’t want to write this, I don’t want to document it. I don’t want to remember the depth of the experience then which we weren’t allowed to call love and I don’t want to remember the acute ache and raw bewilderment that came afterwards.

My heart, tender again, seems to urge me forward.

Charles and I have been in touch lately. I was enjoying our newly created sort of Teresa of Avila – John of the Cross sort of friendship. It fit. We seemed to be able to continue with our deep, spiritually rich conversations and the attachment of the past is no longer there.

I called him later that day to tell him about my conversation with Megan.

I left a message on his voice mail, my voice light, laced up with “Isn’t it a small world?” inflection. I smiled as I spoke, purposefully leaving the perplexed cadence elsewhere.

I went about my usual nightly business: I went to my show, I performed on stage, I laughed with my friends, and when I checked my phone later I saw Charles had called me repeatedly. I finally got back with him this morning.

He said he was concerned about Megan. He was afraid in their evening of conversation she might have gotten too attached to him. He wanted to be sure she was doing well.

I managed to continue to talk normally. I didn’t shout into the phone about how expansive egos can be, even when coated in spirituality-ese.

I can’t say this story can be tied up with a red ribbon, a yellow ribbon or even a lavender ribbon. It is still soaking in the sea of my tender heart, waiting for this chapter to continue.

Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She teaches a teleclass/ecourse "Discover the Power of Writing & Telling Engaging, Enlightening Stories" which begins again March 22, 2012. Find details by clicking this link.

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(C) 2012 Julie Jordan Scott

Letter to Inspirer of Jack London, Isadora Duncan, Samuel Clemens... and Me! #scintilla

I am sort of doing this “write a letter to an inspirer” via an art project I have been working on since October. The project is called “Women’s Sphere?” and focuses on women artists, writers and poets, especially those who have suffered from mental illness.

    The thrust of the project in November focused on Charlotte Perkins Gilman and The Yellow Wallpaper.

   She fascinated me (still does!) because she had very severe depression and she lived. She didn’t commit suicide, she lived. Part of the art project is to become intimate with both the words and things related to “The Women’s Sphere” which stood in the way of many women’s success in the 19^th Century and as much as we don’t want to face it, still causes rifts today.

     Here is what I wrote to her, then, and affixed to the bottom of one of my “Women’s Sphere?” pieces.

 

 

One of my recent poetic fascinations is a contemporary and friend of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ina Coolbrith, who was the first poet laureate of the state of California. Not only was she a fine poet in her own right, she also influenced many including non-poets  such as Jack London and Isadora Duncan.

I researched Ina in the Oakland Public Library History room and got some great material, even a letter from a grown Jack London, thanking Miss Coolbrith for treating him with such respect as a little boy. She was the librarian there and completely respected the book choices of the ten-year-old novelist to be.

She left a forever mark in his mind.

Part of my mission is to help more people remember her.

Here is my letter to Ina:

Dear Ina,

     How can words express my gratitude to you now, so many years since you died on Leap Day, 1928.

     You made such an impact on so many, sweet Ina, that I am working to be sure people remember you and the impact you had on literature – and all the arts – in California. I remember reading the article you had in 1922 in the Tribune, lambasting California for forgetting its heritage in the arts.

     It is ninety years later, Ina, and we’re still working on it.

     I look to women like you as my foremothers. There is nothing that would make me happier than to think you would be proud of me, both for my words and for the advocacy I do on behalf of you and on behalf of Californians in the future.

     Thank you for continuing on with your words even after the Earthquake. My heart aches to think of your words that were lost then. I can’t imagine what that would be like. I do know, however, how beautiful the view is from the park that bears your name in San Francisco.

    The first time I visited the Ina Coolbrith Park I cried. Legend has it you sat on a bench in that very park and chatted with a young journalist named Samuel Clemens. There are some hints at romance, too. Makes me smile. Makes me wonder.

     The first time I visited your park I stood up for myself in a big way for me. It was as if you were there, urging me “stick up for yourself, Julie! I believe in you… there you go….”.  My children and friends insist I was channeling you as I stood at the top of one of the steep staircases and refused to come down until after sunset.

     You, the legend, helped create a family legend which will be told for generations, I am sure.

     I will continue studying your life with great passion and joy.

     With Much Love,

     Julie

 

Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She teaches a teleclass/ecourse "Discover the Power of Writing & Telling Engaging, Enlightening Stories" which begins again March 22, 2012. Find details by clicking this link.

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(C) 2012 Julie Jordan Scott

Growing Up Means Giving Forgiveness More Power than Anger

Last night I sat in a circle of familiar faces in an unfamiliar different guise. It was a poetry group made up completely with people I knew mostly in different contexts.  Before it started I watched my leg bounce up and down, down and up, without me voluntarily moving it.

My leg took on all the nervous “what am I doing here again?” energy I felt in my chest and throat.

I have been attending a Poetry Critique group since September and the strangest thing has happened: my former constant stream of poetry writing went dry. Words no longer gurgled in my gut, ready to be born daily.

Poems excused themselves from the ends of my pencils or my fingers on the keyboard and except for a very rare blurt of words, I was silent. I arrived at the poetry circle with a stack of four poems in my lap.

This night, though, was different. We shared in a circle, taking turns.

Some people passed, not sharing anything. Others said, “I just have one” and ended up sharing more as the circle became more intimate and open.

We went around the group three times. Each time the circle went around again it built my confidence. People were listening, they were smiling, they were nodding. When we got to the second and third times around, people started doing something even better: offering wordless praise in “hmmm” and “ughhh” as exclamation points that say “I feel your words” or “I connect with your words” or “Lovely.”

I listened as people began opening up and sharing. Since many of the poems shared were about healing, the discussion of healing became a favorite one. One member was especially vocal about holding those who ever hurt her accountable.

Anger still burned from her center and was sent in arrows through her voice and her eyes.

I thought about my situation. I thought about how much better it feels to allow my father the space to forget his years as a drunk. He is over eighty years old now. Since he stopped drinking thirty years ago he has been a changed man. Yes, the fathering I received in my adolescence was more than somewhat absent.

I enjoy our relationship is today.

I don’t know how many more years I will have with him.

I am so glad I haven’t given anger the power to ruin our relationship again.

This meant more to me than the company car once did or the wallet full of credit cards once did or the traveling on my own once did or renting my first apartment or buying my first car. Even having my children – including my first child who was stillborn, which causes a lot of growing up very quickly – pales in comparison to the sweet “getting it” of letting go of past aches and hurts in favor of forgiveness.

Growing up is forgiving and meaning it, acting it, and passing along the love which will be remembered forever and for generations.

My children can’t even imagine their grandpa as I remember him during my earlier years.

They accept what I tell them and turn to laugh as Grandpa shows them sights or shares stories of how he remembers the early days with the rest of my siblings.

This is growing up: not needing to point out the hurts not because of being in a codependent or fearful place, but because of love alone.

If you have anger brewing in your gut that continues to hurt you personally, instead of adding to the rage, why not add to the love, instead.

My bet is you’ll feel so much better, like I do.

I have written two poems since last night. The hurt from the critique group will not hurt my creative process, it will only enhance it from now on.

Word-love will have the power to move poetry forward rather than comparison or judgment or anger holding it back. This is adulthood.

Yes. This is adulthood.

Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She teaches a teleclass/ecourse "Discover the Power of Writing & Telling Engaging, Enlightening Stories" which begins again March 22, 2012. Find details by clicking this link.

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(C) 2012 Julie Jordan Scott

#Scintilla Project Day 1 Post #2 Feels Like the First Time of Freedom, Again & Again & Again

             Today is the first day of Scintilla: I decided (since I am a perpetual overachiever, some might say) I would play with both prompts. This is my second post of Day 1 ~ Here is how the prompt landed in my In Box 

Life is a series of firsts. Talk about one of your most important  firsts. What did you learn? Was it something you incorporated into your life as a result?

     Today, I realize is a first. It is a first day of freedom after being not imprisoned, but being imprisoned.

     I know, I know… that is awfully nebulous, but it is perhaps the best description I can come up with while writing stream of consciousness style. Some of you from Reverb11 may remember me repeatedly talking about early October, how I was smacked into hell for a few days. Well, hell has officially vaporized from my life.

     Today is a first day of fearlessness after five months of continual fear.

     Today is a first day of not being afraid whenever I hear a car door slam in front of my yard.

     Today is a first day of not wondering if the other shoe would drop.

     Today is a first day of not looking over my shoulder constantly.

     Today is a first day of sincere hope.

     Today the birds in my neighborhood sang the songs, especially for me.

     Today is the first day of this rebirth, in a life of more rebirths than I never knew were possible.

     Today is a first day as everyday is a first day: a day of choosing each day as a new life to be lived well, to be shared and celebrated and restored to its lustrous conception. With each breath, each moment of shared eye contact, each moment of annoyance and question and answer and witness of wonder.

     Today I walked down the hallway that splits my home into two. My feet padded along, white socks shining against the hardwood floor. I felt oddly content.

     I had recognized the import of today.

     A first day. A birth-day of sorts.

     The lesson I continue to relearn (and relearn and relearn) is this:

     To live a completely engaged, expressed with passion lifestyle, it is fruitful to live each and every day as a “first time” like that old song from 1970’s band… “Feels like the First Time”

First day of school

First day of a variety of jobs

First day free from former employment

First day back on stage

First day of any rehearsal

First riding of a bicycle

First hot springs trip

First dates

First kisses

First conversations

Lasts….

First baby

First moment with each baby

First home

First apartment, alone (and only!)

First couch surfing

Today is another First day of freedom

Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She teaches a teleclass/ecourse "Discover the Power of Writing & Telling Engaging, Enlightening Stories" which begins again March 22, 2012. Find details by clicking this link.

(Photo to the left by Michelle Guerrero, incredible photograher residing in Tehachapi, California.)

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Time for a #ROW Wednesday Check In ~ Celebrating Art & Writing in the Women's Sphere

Only three more ROW80 Check Ins this round! WOW! I find myself neither happy nor sad. I find myself grateful. I am happy with what I have accomplished and look forward to continuing.

Last Friday I did something that felt so selfish yet also, apparently, was of service simultaneously so I guess it isn’t wholly selfish after all.

Don’t you love it when that happens?

Last Fall I started on a writing related art project I call “Women’s Sphere?” It focuses on women writers past and present, poets, artists, playwrights – any word and image lovers – who have experienced mental illness and in many cases, died due to their mental illness.

Before you shut this screen because it sounds too depressing, I want to let you know: my focus is on honoring each woman AND to see what it was that aided some women to survive and even be extra successful in spite of their depression or bi polar illness or whatever it is that ailed them.

Read this, my letter to Charlotte Perkins Gilman which is found on the bottom of one of last November’s pieces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last Monday I decided it was time to continue, so I started dying paper from old books so I would be able to begin again. I didn’t want to stop there, though, I
wanted to have other women collaborate with me, to add their words to the words I had collected.

I asked several of my writing friends to meet me at a local coffee haunt for some “improv writing.” I am always pleased and a little surprised when people appear after receiving an invitation as nebulous as this one.

Look at how very dedicated they look as they chose words and wrote from the dyed pages I presented.

I was thinking yesterday I have learned a lot about my creative process during this ROW80 round, perhaps more than I’ve learned in the past eight years. I learned how much my love affair with writing is intact. I have learned that while I love my other creative endeavors, writing is where I will have the greatest impact, so I want to fully dedicate myself to my writing for the next several months or perhaps as much as the next year.

This is a big deal for someone who loves the stage as much as I do, but watching how my productivity fell during the end of the rehearsal process and how exhausted I have been post-rehearsal, it doesn’t feel like an equitable trade off right now.

Discovering this, like discovering people WANT to collaborate with my creatively beyond theater stuff, is a big, no-make-that-huge, deal.

I am getting back into the swing of my writing practices and my WIP and all those wondrous activities that keep me ROWing a long.

My Wednesday ROW80 posts are not nitty gritty here is what I have done toward my goals, instead they focus on “who am I being as I pursue more writing.”

THANK YOU so much for reading! Word-love to you, each and all!

 

Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She teaches a teleclass/ecourse "Discover the Power of Writing & Telling Engaging, Enlightening Stories" which begins again March 22, 2012. Find details by clicking this link.

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Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She teaches a teleclass/ecourse "Discover the Power of Writing & Telling Engaging, Enlightening Stories" which begins again March 22, 2012. Find details by clicking this link.

Did you enjoyed this essay? Receive emails directly to your inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -

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(C) 2012 Julie Jordan Scott