Julie Unplugged

Oh, the Many Ways I Love....

Canyon de Chelly -
How do I love Canyon de Chelly?
I love it deep within, in my gut.
I love the way its wind feels against my skin and the way the breeze sounds as it high fives the Cottonwood leaves, the ancient rocks, the pebbles under my feet as I walk to a lookout point.
Katherine had visited the Canyon six times this Summer, but never saw Spider Rock until today.
The overlook at Spider Rock is the exact place I fell in love with the Canyon though I had no idea it would take 23 years to return.
That time I was pregnant with my daughter Marlena, who died at birth six months later. Today I visited with her two sisters and one brother.
I heard French, German, Navajo and Italian. I shared a photo taking moment with one Italian woman who didn't speak much English.
I said, "Italian people...mmmmm......" to which she replied "American people are so friendly!"
Another Canyon de Chelly memory.
Grateful.....

Step One to Prepare Yourself for Your Next Phase of Leadership: Soul Assignment Accepted

Ever now and then my worlds collide. This week I have been working on what I am calling my Soul Assignment Accepted: Studying Women Leaders so that I may be a more effective leader.

Today at BloggyMoms Blog Dare we were to being our blog posts with...

Let me ask you this: so naturally my mind went immediately to leadership.Whether you are prepared or not, I need to ask you this: what are you doing right now to prepare yourself to be a better leader?

You might think, “I am not a leader, I am a stay-at-home-Mom (or) I am a clerk-typist (or) I work part time at a movie theater as I am going to school.”

Try this on: We are ALL leaders, some of us just don’t know it yet.

Every time you are out in public or choose to live the life of a hermit at home, your actions are speaking and people are watching. They might not have a telescope or a microscope watching your every move and they might not be taking notes, but someone is witnessing what you do and what you don’t do and to them, it speaks volumes both about you and the life you lead.

Did you read that:

“It speaks volumes both about you and the life you lead.”

You might have thought before you started reading today that what you did or didn’t do didn’t matter, it didn’t make a difference, it doesn’t impact others but I am here to remind you it does.

Merriam Webster defines a leader like this:  a person who leads: as a : guide, conductor b (1) : a person who directs a military force or unit (2) : a person who has commanding authority or influence c (1) : the principal officer of a British political party (2) : a party member chosen to manage party activities in a legislative body (3) : such a party member presiding over the whole legislative body when the party constitutes a majority d (1) : conductor c (2) : a first or principal performer of a group

Congratulations – you are the guide, the conductor, the person directing your life force. You are the commander of influence over your life and also its principal officer. You have been chosen to manage your life activities and preside over its whole legislative body!

WOW! You are the principal performer of your life, not the person who did or said or “made you” feel this way or that way. No.

YOU are the leader of your life.

YOU make a difference in your life and the lives of others so tell me, now: what are you doing right now to prepare yourself to be a better leader?

What WILL you do today to be a better leader right now and tomorrow and the next day?

You know what else?

I believe in you as a leader.

Perhaps that is your first task: to begin believing in YOURSELF as a leader.

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott

This is my Ultimate Blog Challenge Writing for the Day. Be watching for my challenge posts which will include Writing Prompts, Writing Tips and General Life Tips and Essays. This is Blog 20/31 for July!

 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 leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.

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Samuel & Mommy: Beyond Language - On Ritual and Safety in Parenting a Child with High Functioning Autism

It’s #FiveMinuteFriday free write time! <—click to tweet this! 

Where a flash mob of folks spend five minutes all writing on the same topic and then share ‘em at LisaJoBaker.com.

Words from my five minutes -

Samuel and I communicate in a beyond language place not unlike my brother, John, and I used to do.

People from the outside can’t climb inside our beyond language place, but for me it is a sacred experience between mother and son, fed by days and weeks and months of ritual and built on a foundation of safety and “I understand you” is the water we swim in. “I understand you and I love you.” is perhaps a tiny bit more accurate.

Samuel lives on the autistic spectrum. He has high functioning autism, so to most people he appears absolutely normal until something, unseen by most of the world, happens to interfere in his world and he blows up, to them, unexpectedly.

This happened last night at a party. I didn’t communicate clearly with him so when I said it was time to go, he wasn’t ready. He started crying, hard, and yelling at me.

He is eleven-years-old so this is pretty abnormal behavior for a boy his age.

He didn’t know many of the people there very well.

I felt awful about it, for him primarily.

When Emma saw him start to go, she retreated into the house. She gets scared when these episodes happen and she also gets more embarrassed than I.

I remember what it was like to be a special needs sibling, after all, my brother John had Down’s Syndrome. Before he died, we would communicate silently as well. I would “hear” him, though, clear as a bell. He would tell me things with his eyes. I would respond. No one else would be able to hear our conversations, our beyond words spaces and places we walked within.

I could easily be resentful or angry to have these relationships with these two guys in my life, but I am not. I am blessed. John prepared me to mother Samuel. Samuel prepared me to be an educational advocate, to communicate better with bureaucrats than I ever wanted to in the past.

Beyond language, beyond appearances, beyond our own understanding, we are blessed.

Five minutes: Over....

The guidelines for Five Minute Friday -

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

OK, are you ready? Please give me your best five minutes on:::

Beyond…

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott

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 leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.

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Soul Assignment: Becoming a More Engaged, Educated, Inspiring Woman Leader, Part 2

“ Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization. ”

— Eugene V. Debs

I was discouraged yesterday and believe it or not, I made that discouragement mean I was wrong. My not very productive thought was “If I was doing the right thing with my life, I wouldn’t feel discouraged. I wouldn’t feel discouraged.”

What I did next was important, though. I got up and moved away from my stuck place behind the keyboard.

I went about doing chores, taking care of my children, doing my afternoon Mom-Schlep and I allowed my mind to wander.

My mind wandered to my soul collage card from yesterday to Women and Leadership.

I had recently decided to leap into the discovery of current women in politics, especially those beyond the United States. I was an international relations major but somehow I had gotten way out of touch with the political world, especially on an international level.

One conversation knocked on my heart and helped me break through the inertia.

Last weekend I created a soul collage card that to me called me to personal leadership as well as the study of women leaders. I quickly discovered Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany.

I confess, I had never even heard of Angela Merkel until yesterday. Now, I am deep into a study of Merkel and other top women leaders. The Forbes list for 2011 includes two powerful wives, a handful of politicians and a smattering of business women.

This made me feel very uncomfortable. It made me feel squirmy in my seat and more than a little bit disappointed in myself. Instead of getting stuck deeper in the quicksand of “my shortcomings” instead I accepted that for the past and now, I have turned the corner into spending more time learning about women leaders so that I may also become a better leader in the work I do.

I may not be the secretary of state, I may not be the head of a multinational corporation worth billions, but I do serve on several educational committees and I run successful Writing Camp programs and am in the midst of raising three phenomenal human beings.

My discontent of today, my squirmy ickiness isn’t holding me back any more, my vision of being a better leader is pulling me forward.

What will you do, today, to become a more engaged, educated leader?

This may be as simple as a shift in thinking or a quick google search on a woman who intrigues you. Allow your vision of yourself as a better leader pull you forward. The discontent is the nudge and the vision is what gives you wings.

This is post #18/31 for the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Slowly and surely I am getting caught up!

Follow me on Twitter: @juliejordanscot 

Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook (THANK YOU!)

© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott

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 leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.

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The Super Power Every Mom Needs: The Time Stretcher! always Victorious Over the Time Beast -

Day 56: If you could have a super power, what would it be?

I set a timer to write this: 5 minutes to decide the Super Power, what it is and why it would be so often to have.

So – I am a busy mom – writer – actor – poet – performer – friend – teacher – leader – and on – and on- and on. My biggest nemesis?

The Time Beast!

(Special Note - the only images remotely resembling what I had in mind for this on flickr were both obscene. Please accept these goofy, loveable yet heinous critters in their place.)

License

Some rights reserved by Daniel Ferenčak

Have you seen this big old hairy wort covered monster?

It huffs, it puffs, it continually blows down my house-of-cards-slice-of-time calendar and drives me into Mama-etc, insanity!

Because I have the super power of intuitive mind reading even now, I can see some of you nodding, smiling and yes – I even hear a groan or two.

My Super Power of Choice – The Time Stretcher!

Yes – when need be, I am able to stretch moments of time so that I can get what I need to get done, done without becoming a crazed whirling dervish at the same time – unless, ofcourse, I feel like being a Sufi Dancer – which is what a whirling dervish is so perhaps, if your super power is “I have to learn more cool interesting trivia” with that fact, you are now on your way.

I don’t need much, I just need that.

You know, when your best friend is coming over and you haven’t mopped your hard wood floor yet? It will only take ten minutes but there she is, pulling up in front of your house?                                

Zap the Time Stretcher into motion and the entire world, except for you, is on slo-motion.

You can get that floor mopped, calmly whisk on some mascara and lipstick, and greet her at the door with her favorite cup of tea and a smile on your face.

Plus you haven’t even broken a sweat.

My timer just went off. I was able to stretch time enough to write a respectable blog post in five minutes. I’ll take that, too.

(Special Note: There need to be more Moms posing as Super Hero's for the next round of Summer Blog Challenge. This is why I am stuck with a Mom Mobile image which is quite cute, but not exactly what I hoped to use! Grateful, though for the usage -

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Some rights reserved by Brett L.)

5 Simple Steps to Get Over a 24 Hour “Apathy Bug”: End Creative Block, Confusion, Blechyness)

Yesterday I caught an Apathy bug. It is sort of like a flu, this all too common illness and if not watched, it may become long term or in the worst case, it may become lethal to your passion.

Thankfully it was only a 24 hour Apathy bug, but oh, it reminded me how simple it is to fall from the inspiration train and into the murky mire of “Is the work I am doing important enough to the world to continue doing it?”

My brain felt as if it was coated with a sticky malaise.

I didn’t allow myself to fuss about it, I just relaxed a little bit and focused on different things: helping a friend with organization and chores, chatting with other friends, purposefully staying away from the keyboard.

This morning when I got up, I did my usual routines with my son, Samuel. I read some Rilke as we sat at the kitchen table. I googled some quotes of one of my newest heros, Angela Merkel, the current Chancellor of Germany.

I then discovered another European Woman Political leader, former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who is now in prison while keeping her name and image in the headlines. I don’t even know her politics but I can’t help loving her.

Once again my writing flows, proving sometimes the best medicine for what ails you is to step away and focus anywhere except “the block” or “the problem” or “my ridiculous inabilities.”

1.      Leave the problem where it lives. Walk away and restrict your thought about it, especially if those thoughts are coated in negative self talk.

2.      Do mundane, meaningless activities, especially if they will be of service to others.

3.      If you are compelled, research another area of passion in your life.

4.      Stay away from the “problem” until you are at peace with “it” and, in fact, are able to not consider it problematic anymore.

5.      Remember, it isn’t “the problem” that is the problem, it is your opinion about the problem that creates the lack of movement and the sticky malaise. A philosopher from more than twenty centuries ago taught me this: a one time Greek slave named Epictetus. He was a very wise fellow whose wisdom has never let me down.

The next time you catch the Apathy Bug, don’t beat yourself up about it. Instead, follow these five simple steps and come back to your passion refreshed. Why? Because you know deep inside your work is important enough to the world to continue doing it. I am certain it is.

Photo of Yulia Tymoshenko courtesy of

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott

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 leads Writing Camp with JJS & soon will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.

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Imagine: a luscious, extragant nothing planned week to Yourself. What would you do with it?

Today's prompt: If I had a week to myself...

Great thought: a week to myself, a luscious extravagant nothing planned week to myself....

Since I am tired right now, probably close to perpetually since I became a Mom nearly twenty-one years ago, I think, “I would go to sleep early and stay asleep as long as my body wanted to stay asleep.”

I would also go someplace other than home to create, to contemplate and to declutter my thoughts.

Right now there is a lot of thought-matter up there. I would take a week to bid adieu to the thought matter. Just open my mind and let the sun, the wind, the breeze, the thunder and lightning touch it.

I would like to ease into a 48 fast from communication. No talking, no writing, no reading.

Easing back into communication, I would give myself an hour with my notebook daily for the rest of the week. For the rest of that time, no one else’s judgment, opinions or beliefs would touch my now cleared mind.

I would have space to begin missing people.

I would ease back into normal life by slowly reappearing. A small slice of time with my cell phone on, perhaps a text or two, but I think after that I would be committed to a time, daily, to let me mind open and flutter in the breeze without agenda, without plan, without concern except to be open.

Follow me on Twitter: @juliejordanscot 

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott

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 leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.

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Soul Assignment Accepted: What Does it Take to Be a Woman Leader, Part One

This was the first soulcollage card I made last Saturday. I have been haunted by a recent couchsurfer from Austria who was so much more aware of world politics than I. PLUS I am such a reluctant leader… people tend to appoint me leader without me volunteering. The first time this happened was the fourth grade in Girl Scouts. People just look to me as such so it is no accident to know Samuel drew this card for me this morning to study and to live today.

So far today I have written in response:

I am one who leads.

I am one who leads women and men.

I am one who inspired, one who creates a path no one else can fathom yet. I see crowds (comfy ones) in rural villages, in fields of red flowers.

I am one who brings color to the colorless. I am one who believes in the forefront, who stands at the forefront proclaiming joy in each moment.

I am one who asks questions:

Why am I a leader?

Who do I lead?

What purpose does my leadership serve?

Is my leadership making a difference?

Am I making the right decisions?

Are the results of my leadership worth the personal sacrifices I am making?

 Deepening questions –

What is this card offering to me?

 

Courage

 

Will

 

Support

 

Inspiration

 

What does this card want or need from me?

 

Learn more about current women leaders in politics, business and the arts. Continue to learn about grandmothers of the arts. You know how to spread passion, now spread it.

 

Are there any other messages from the card?

 

You can, Julie, my love, you can!

 

Speaking as if I am the image:

I chose the woman leading the march with the flag and the blue binder in her arms.

Many of the times I head out the door to lead, I am afraid. I know the cause is bigger than my fear and there are lives that will be changed under my leadership. This makes me move. It makes me conspire with myself (my heart?) to reach deeper, higher, further.

I look at each person with that same strength and conviction in my eyes: women leaders will change the world by mothering it differently than other leaders have. Yes, I said mothering the world.

Current leaders to study now:

German Chancellor: Angela Merkel

From Finland: Heidi Anneli Hautala was appointed as the Minister for International Development to the Finnish government in June 2011. She deals with the ministry’s development cooperation affairs and the government’s ownership steering within the Prime Minister’s Office.

Hautala has been referred as the Grand Lady of Finnish Human Rights politics. She is a former member of the European Parliament and the chairwoman of the parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights. She was in charge of European Parliament’s human rights policy in external relations. She believes in furthering human rights, transparency, environmental responsibility and global justice. During the past years Heidi Hautala has been known as a versatile, active and fearless politician internationally and in Finland, where she has been a household name for two decades.

It is no accident you are reading this today. Sure, it is my card and my intuitive listening that gave my responses.

How do you connect with the card and with what I have written?

So there we have it: Soul Assignment Accepted on July 25, 2012

This is post #16/31 for the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Slowly and surely I am getting caught up!

Follow me on Twitter: @juliejordanscot

Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook (THANK YOU!)

© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott

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 leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.

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"At the moment that my camera happened to find you...." Creative Contemplation via lyrics from Jackson Browne

I talked about it last week with Chrissi, actually.

Chrissi was one of my recent couchsurfing guests and we were hiking together at Trail of 100 Giants at the Sequoia National Forest. I said something about how Americans always seem to insist on big goofy grins in their photos. “One of my French exchange students back, oh, fifteen years ago, commented on this. She was right. But I think now, it has changed. With digital photography, people seem to have calmed down the need for the whole “chhheeeeeeze!” pose constantly.”

My Mother had a favorite photo of me when I was a little girl. I haven’t seen it in years, but I can still see myself in it. I am sitting on a bench at Turtleback Zoo. I sat with my hair in braids, as always, a blue gingham sleeveless shirt, my hands on either side of my frame.  I was probably waiting as I sat on the bench. I was eight years old, looking straight ahead of my view but you can only see my profile in the photo. I had no idea my photo was being taken or I would have hidden the question living in my face, my heart, my spirit.

This morning I was inspired by my friend Paula D’Andrea to focus on a song today. Well, Paula is always focused on Rockin' Life! but when my breakfast was accompanied by Jackson Browne on the Muzak, I laughed quietly at first and then thought, “This is not a song you hear often.”

By the time I got home, I felt the song was an assignment of sorts.

The first two stanzas:

Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer
I was taken by a photograph of you
There were one or two I know that you would have liked a little more
But they didn't show your spirit quite as true

You were turning 'round to see who was behind you
And I took your childish laughter by surprise
And at the moment that my camera happened to find you
There was just a trace of sorrow in your eyes

I feel a call today to study images of my own authenticity, to put those on display, to not concern myself with conventional norms like ugly or pretty or middle aged or out of shape or embarrassed, but instead focus on showing you my true spirit: unmasked, unafraid and non judgemental.

Cameron has told me my face is one of the most changeable he has encountered. I can look so different on any given day. Sometimes I think that is from being an actor but then, upon thinking, I think it is from being true. My face shows my emotions in that precise moment.

My emotions are worn differently on my face. I think they are authentic. Some of these photos I look prettier or more “conventionally acceptable” than others. What I love about them all is they are all perfectly 1,000% me.

This Spring I sat on a hill overlooking Bakersfield, one of my favorite spots in the world. My friend mentioned me and the words “deliriously happy” in the same sentence.

“I wouldn’t describe myself as happy.”                

This photo was taken of me on that day

I wasn’t sure what prompted me to say this, but it is true.

I love and hate this photo. He used to capture fantastic photos of me, true photos of me. I am praying in this photo, perhaps trying to block out the lack of the love I used to feel and an attempt at being content with the love that remains.

It is truly me, even with the spot on my cheek waiting to be checked out by my doctor, the eyebrows that need reshaping, and my hair that was way too blonde for a while.

I am beyond happy. I don’t see happy as better than sad or maudlin as worse than blissful.

Authentic emotions, in the moment. That’s what I want to wear on my face.

This is me in the beginning of October, 2011. It is a very clear portrayal of precisely how I was feeling in that moment. I was in Westwood with my friend, Cameron. I asked him to take the shot and he just clicked away as I stood and "felt" - it is significant as a model (even if the only audience is you) to just be with what you are feeling instead of playing fashion model with the photographer choreographing the whole thing. If your intent is for a specific purpose other than catching your own authenticity, that is a whole different experience.

This photo was taken in September 2008, by my friend, Todd Powers with

Foxglove Photography. We did a session that night with these wonders of nature I had collected on a walk while I was working on a collection of poetry and essays called “Last Years Leaves.” I wish this photo shoot had an element of smell. It was soooooo heavenly with overripe and weathered, hungry leaves.

What I love is Todd gives me space to just experience and he just clicks. See how intent I am on the berries? I am not even thinking Todd is taking photos me me, I am clearly in the moment, a little sad, a little curious, a little hopeful, a little grounded, a little wishing I could float up and out of where I was.

 

This is Emma in Alice in Wonderland this November at her first High School play. She is an extension of me, always will be, and in this photo she reminds me so much of myself I decided to include it. She had a pretty miserable time during this process. This shot has the quality it does because I had to crop her out of a group but I love what her face says. “I am trying, I am here, I am successful because in my trying, I am doing, no matter how awkward or sad or lonely I am, I am here, on stage and in life, I am giving my all.”

My final photo for today is a self portrait I took. It was a part of my Soul Grief series. There was a time when I cried for 142 days in a row. I consciously created this because when I cried, I remembered, "I have no crying photos. Shoot this, now."

I wasn't faking these tears, I was feeling them.

I laugh now when I see women whose faces have been frozen in place by a variety of procedures so they can keep their skin smooth no matter what they are feeling. I would rather look conventionally ugly than falsely, conventionally beautiful.

Ironically, the second photo here - the one with my eyes open - is one of my favorite photos of myself looking, in my opinion, beautiful.

 Don't you love photos like Emma's that say, "“I am trying, I am here, I am successful because in my trying, I am doing, no matter how awkward or sad or lonely I am, I am here, on stage and in life, I am giving my all.”

 

What more could life ask?

In the old days, I would plaster on my happy mask and move through my day, smiling no matter what. My mother even noted in my baby book, “Julie even smiles through her tears.” As a baby I had this life skill. As a baby I had this life skill.

It is a skill I no longer use. I am grateful for that.

Follow me on Twitter: @juliejordanscot 

Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook (THANK YOU!) 

  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 leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.

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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In Praise of Doing Absolutely Nothing: The Joy of Near Silent Quiet

It's important to have some “do absolutely nothing” time every once in a whileaway from your children.

I don’t even mean time for what we would normally call self-care, like getting a manicure or taking in a matinee or even having a chatty lunch with a girlfriend you haven’t seen for a while.

I mean time to do absolutely nothing.

I like to do this on my porch, usually in the early morning before anyone else is awake. Sometimes, though, doing absolutely nothing time only comes in the dark. Like last night.

Last night I sat on my porch in the near middle of the night because sometimes this is the only time I have to “be away” from my children. My son begged me to rest my weary self next to him while he fell asleep because he has cultivated a recent fear of ghosts and haunted houses and the still darkness of his pillow conjures scary thoughts. He will call out, “Emma, is that you in the hallway?” because he is afraid the footsteps belong to an unknown ghost.

So I gave him plenty of time to fall asleep and then crawled out of the bed and onto my porch. I sat and listened.

The thing about being quiet is it takes a while for your ears to acclimate to the quiet, just like when your eyes get used to the dark.

The quietness waits as if to see whether you are trustworthy to hear the nuances and hushed messages of near silence.

Like in the morning, when I write haiku, last evening I wrote some contemplative short poetry:

My neighborhood sounds so different late at night.

Breeze helps me forget 100 plus days.

Crickets sing timelessness.

Car passes, unaware.

I don't want to be that car, passing unaware.

I would rather be a cricket or a leaf the wind is strumming.

I tweeted the poetry as it was born, thinking there might be others out there who couldn’t sleep and rather than being bothered by sleeplessness, I thought they might want to step out their front or back doors and sit awhile to listen to whatever sounds there are in their neighborhood’s near silence.

It's important that every once in a while to have some “do absolutely nothing” time away from your children, even if it only steps away while they are sleeping in another room.

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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 leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.

This is post #16/31 for the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Slowly and surely I am getting caught up!

© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott