Julie Unplugged

Quotes (and images) from Zelda Fitzgerald

Zelda Fitzgerald: Her portrait overlaying her painting, "Marraige at Cana"

Quote highlights, all from Zelda Fitzgerald.

“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.”

“She refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn't boring.”

"I wish I could write a beautiful book to break those hearts that are soon to cease to exist: a book of faith and small neat worlds and of people who live by the philosophies of popular songs.”

“The trouble with emergencies is," she said, "that I always put on my finest underwear and then nothing happens.”

“memories should be sharp when one has nothing else to live for”

* * * * *

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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.

Changing Mind, Heart and Response - Another Chapter of the Healing Process

December 20 - What did you change your mind about in 2012?
Did you have a change of heart about anything? What was it, and why?

Those who have been reading me for a while know I have been dealing with melanoma this Fall. I actually have time calendared to deal with it through January 3, when I visit my surgeon again to hear whether or not I need an additional surgery.

I am open to either having surgery or not having surgery, primarily because of my change of heart and mind in 2012.

When I started my cancer journey, I landed the plane on my life coaching/personal development/training, etc business.

I also pulled the Theater Performance Train into the station.

I was in a tenuous spot. I didn’t know what sort of treatment I would need or what the recovery time would actually turn out to be for me. Healing is all individual. I hadn’t had a surgery since I had my tonsils out when I was six-years-old so I had no idea how to might work.

Day Four of Melanoma Surgery Recovery. Scar is covered with band aid.

I was happiest when I have maintained control over how much of my “new face” I show the world. I have done some contract work and have appeared as an emcee and done some poetry and storytelling performances, but these were all under carefully controlled circumstances. It was all carefully controlled by me, mind you, and my friends understood, mostly.

I never thought I would be comfortable with not providing my usual life coaching and teaching and writing process work with groups, but I was and I am comfortable with it. I made the choice and I am standing in that choice.

I miss the large scale absence of my work, but I am taking more time for writing, for art, for my family and it has worked out well.

Next up, though, is deciding when and how to relaunch myself, especially given the unknown of my January 3 surgeon visit.

My “rough draft” thought is to schedule some “open house” events via telephone. I found I could talk on the phone mindfully within three or four days of surgery AND I found even though it is tempting to run around town after surgery, I need to mostly just stay put and remember not to lean over at all. You have no idea how much pressure goes to your face when you lean from the waist!

I am completely cool with this plan and have no anxiety about it.

My heart and mind have definitely shifted into a more abundant, more self-loving, more REAL place. I haven’t just talked about it, I have lived it.

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott

Uncensored: Writing Career - What do you truly want to be?

M. If you could do anything with your writing career, what would it be? Where would it take you? Don’t censor your self, don’t run your dreams through the filter of realism. Give it to us raw.

One of the most inspiring things in my creative life is the list of books written by Julia Cameron. I remember how it was when she published The Artist’s Way.  Very short. Now, she has a lengthy cross genre publishing/creating list that moves me.

I want to be like she is with her credentials.

I have built a crazy busy CV in the visual arts and theater arts even while I continued to write. Now, I’m going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. I have so many books waiting in my wings, it is time for them to consecutively take center stage.

I want to travel and speak, travel and teach, travel and emcee, travel and facilitate and sell my books as I do so to excited audiences. In fact, I am going to write of one of those days now, as if I was writing an email to my daughter, Katherine.

Dear Katherine,

It has been such a wild ride for the last few weeks. I can’t believe all the ground we have covered and how many hugs I have given out, so freely. I thought my limited “fame” of my website and ezines was big back in the day but this… this is that multiplied many times over.

I have to get several of my books reprinted due to this tour. The Autism Mommy series is huge – I didn’t expect that – and my trusty Discovering Your Passion programs and books continue to stir people everywhere.  Poetry Pilgrim has taken off and my sessions in parks – my writing camps – have grown by leaps and bounds.

Can you believe this many years later I made the Passion Tour a reality?

Oh, wow, I forgot to mention how many women, specifically, I have touched in a meaningful way to support the history of our Literary, Artistic and Activist Grandma’s of the 19^th and 20^th centuries. I can see the same shock and then the contagiousness of learning about these women who went before us to change the world. Admiration instantly grows for these pilgrims, these pioneers, these foremothers to the women of today.

After my next stop in Concord, I am going to take a week away for retreat and rejuvenation. I’m not sure where I will go. I think I will make a vision board of some of my favorite places and then throw a dart to see where I will land.

I am so grateful we did this.

I’m so glad I was able to bring this long ago dream to fruition: bringing passion to the people.

With my profits, I am going to start looking at real estate for the Creativity Camp and Artist Retreat Dream of mine from so many years ago. I love this traveling, vagabond, gypsy life, but I also want a sacred solid one space I can return to and allow people to come to my place as a luscious destination.

Oh, honey, I am so contentedly tired, I need to let myself get some rest.

Have I reminded you lately how much you delight me?

With Much Love,

Mommy

= = =

Writing this letter was awesome! I thought I would write two days in one, but I need to settle into this letter and write my uncensored five year plan tomorrow. Like so much else, it has been far too long.

I feel myself coming alive again, thanks to the after melanoma thaw.

It feels incredible.

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott

Scars, Wounds and Remembering to Fearlessly Flaunt Them Without Regret

From Patty Bechtold:

Reverb12 Writing Prompts:

The rewards and gifts I’m taking from this past year into the next are…

The wounds and battle scars I’m taking from this past year into the next are…

The gifts of my wounds are…

 My biggest “Big Wound Thing” from 2012 is my melanoma and the wound from my melanoma surgery which still isn’t absolutely right. It is on its way to being right, but as of now, no no no no no.

 Did I mention “NO!”

 Just after my surgery my friend Jennie said, “Oh, I bet the day will come when you will celebrate your scar!” She is right, to a degree.

 Perhaps in the months to come I will celebrate it more vociferously.

 I would venture to guess I am still too close to it and the reality of another surgery hovering about I feel like I am in the “Celebration Green Room” – waiting to be called to places before I “go on stage” to announce, “My scar celebration time is here!”

 The time before and after my surgery also strengthened my “No, not at this time,” button. I was able to turn things down, cancel commitments and create my schedule from moment-to-moment rather than month-to-month.

 It seems as if all my battle scars of the year harken from this one incident but I know that can’t possibly be true.

Digging more deeply: I have battle scars from being rejected via betrayal. Repeatedly. This particular episode coincided with my melanoma which only made it feel worse and like my melanoma wound, the scar is taking its time to heal.

 I have learned a lot about grace and unconditional love from this horrific chapter of my life. I would say I have integrated a lot of what I had learned about grace and unconditional love. I also believe this chapter is one that still has pages to turn in 2013.

 There is my Theater Absence Battle Scar which was at first by choice and then, later, by melanoma fate.

 I have learned how deep my love for theater is and I have also learned I need to work on production more, to put together my own projects from top to bottom and then bring them to the community without a particular venue being in control. 

Gifts? Tenacity. Grace. Truly Unconditional Love. My friendships are more supportive than I ever knew they could be. I am stronger than I ever knew I was. I am now a (and I abhor this expression) “boundary” setter and holder. I know the power of healing on an entirely new level.

 I have also remembered and will carry forward the strength in holding “Gratitude” and “I am completely pissed off about this!” at the same time. Some people don’t know this is true but 2012 has taught me this is completely possible. I have done it…. and am willing to continue to carry it.

 

These quotes from Carly Simon couldn’t have found me at a more perfect time. She is my favorite singer since 1973 (!), someone I wanted to actually become in high school. Well, I finally know her on a very intimate level through our shared experiences with scars.

“I just want to show off my scar proudly and not be afraid of it.”

 “My scar is beautiful. It looks like an arrow.” (Mine looks like a heart!)

 Her quotes are rising up in my world. I’ll create art with them.

 2012: You were a horrifically wonderful gift to me.

 2013: I am looking forward to what tortuous magnificence we will create together!

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott

Bookends: Favorite Path to Walk? Mine is to the Heart and Soul of California Poetry

Describe the path to a favorite place of yours to walk in 2012. What’s meaningful about the place or the journey?

The path I will share with you lead to my most heart moving view of 2012. They are like bookends:  I walked it in early January, 2012 and I walked it in December 2012. In the months in between I held its memory close and dear.

Some background: I am deeply passionate about women writers, poets and artists in history. I am especially fond of women who were firsts or who changed things or who were eccentric and loved, sometimes beyond belief.

I can’t remember when exactly I discovered Ina Coolbrith, but it was profound love at first read. She has been dead for many years, after all, so I haven’t ever met her in person, but I have walked some of her paths. The most stirring view comes from a tiny slice of a park in San Francisco’s Nob Hill.

In January 2012 when my children and a couple friends of mine were visiting the bay area, it was my most important goal: to be at Ina Coolbrith park at sunset. When I made that goal I didn’t realize the park faces the East Bay so away from the actual sunset, but what I love seeing about this time of day is the light, anyway. The sun itself is cool, but the way it casts light is what gets my heart all stirred up.

My traveling companions somehow didn’t hear my repeated quest to “be at Ina Coolbrith Park at sunset” so when we arrived and they plopped me out of the car at Taylor and Vallejo, an almost inhuman crest of one of many hills in San Francisco, I was so thrilled I let them leave to ostensibly find a parking spot.

I walked contemplatively through the park. I sat with my notebook and wrote. When I got a call about fifteen minutes later from my daughter saying, “We got some pizza, we’re ready now!” it flicked a switch in me I didn’t know was there.

I was not budging from my perch and no one was going to make me. Chinese food in the East Bay be damned, this was a place honoring my beloved and I would not leave until after sunset!

I wrote about it in early January, if you would like to “hear” more and read the pictures.

Just last weekend I returned, this time alone with my notebook in a gentle rain. It was forty degrees. I was more than a little chilled as I sat on the same bench and wrote in my notebook. This time I arrived on foot, managing the ridiculously steep path one slippery step at a time.

I would’ve written in the rain if it was a monsoon. Again, no one could get me to budge from this spot of my beloved. Not Jack Frost, not rain, not dogwalkers or thoughts of “Hurry to make it in time for the concert at Grace Cathedral!”

I moved at my time and I picked some lavender on the way out, so I could continue to be accompanied by my dear friend, Ina, throughout the day.

It is a most lovely, most transformational path I can’t stop talking about with both dear ones of mine and complete strangers, especially those who live in the neighborhood and have no idea who Ina Coolbrith was: the first poet Laureate of California – in the Country, actually. The first anglo child to arrive in the state of California (in a covered wagon!). She attended the first schoolhouse in Los Angeles and was friends with the likes of a young Mark Twain and Bret Harte. Her influence on a young Jack London was so great, that he wrote of her praise of him as a child and told how it impacted him even years later when he was a successful writer. The dancer Isadora Duncan knew her, too, and she was great friends with another beloved woman writer of her day, Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Together they did a lot of work on behalf of women in the early twentieth century.

I love this path so much that I completely lost track of time and have written many more words than I expected to write.

That’s how it is with especially wondrous paths. You just don’t want to stop walking or writing them, bringing those footsteps and views to life again.

 

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Sc

Fragments of Art: Not Necessarily Beginnings Nor Endings

It has been a time of fragments of art rather than completions in art. I have been collecting and photographing and looking at the possibilities of bits and pieces.

I am still holding onto my pieces from my treasure hunting/mini retreat last week. I have them stored away and am waiting for them to demand to be created. My next step is pulling out the collected wood which will serve as a base. I might spray them with some sort of something to keep them from degenerating any further and then start to build.

I just realized something interesting: I see a gender slant here. Most everything I see is masculine. Chew? I see as masculine. Ammunition? I see that as masculine. Why is this? Even the Marlboro cigarette case I see as masculine.

What might I surmise from that?

I’m going to ask the objects to help me figure that out. Maybe add some lace or something to the wood to give it a conventional layer of “womanly”.

Maybe I’ll spray paint using a doily as a stencil: the possibilities are nearly endless.

I was also surprised at how creative I made my train ride from Bakersfield to San Francisco. I was entranced by the view: it is so different than the view I regularly see from the car window. I literally would have been happy to jump off the train and explore… except I don’t think the Amtrak folks would have been very happy nor do I think I would have had so much time to explore San Francisco.

 

That will make many blog posts: how delectable it is there!

Now, dear ones - please come back and visit again so you may see how my fragments develop into assemblages or collages or bodies of work beying... just being fragments without beginning, without end. They sort of just are.... being. Which isn't bad, either. 

Now that I have written it, I will more than likely remember it forever.

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott

 

 

 

Parenting a Child with Autism: Talking about the Shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School

Samuel and I have a ritual of reading the front page of our daily newspaper as we walk by the rack outside a local eaterie. This morning, Samuel was ahead of me and he read the front page alone. It had a large image of a local candle light vigil here in Bakersfield for the people who died last Friday in Newtown, Connecticut.

We sat together later, eating our breakfast, and Samuel softly asked, “Mommy, do you know what happened on December 14?”

I hesitated before I responded. I knew he might have heard and I had wondered if it would increase his every day anxiety which is a part of his autism. I am very aware of all the headlines and copy screaming "Shooter had autism!" I've been concerned that would upset Samuel into silence.

“Ummmm…. Do you mean…” I stuttered.

“The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School,” he said.

I nodded and said, “Yes, I know it happened. What do you know about it?”

“I saw videos on YouTube. One teacher hid her class in a bathroom.”

We discussed whether or not this was a good idea and went onto our next topic without skipping a beat.

I realized I need to touch on this some more, a topic he has raised more than his recent experience with bullying that I can’t even talk about yet without stammering.

He has been watching this video and it touched him enough to tell me about it in his unique way.

I watched the video and noted the teacher talking about acting as a parent, wanting the children to hear "I love you very much," one more time if they were going to die.

This is what I say to my children as they leave every morning with the same intent.

I never assume I will see my children again.

On any day, not just on these days after our latest national shooting disaster.

I know the photo on the cover of the Bakersfield Californian and our daily ritual fueled the beginnings of this conversation. I will be intrigued to find out over the next several days where our conversation will go from here.

I know we will take it slowly and individually, with him signalling me which way to go in his own unique, Samuel-esque way.

 

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott

 

 

At The Corner of Mason & California in San Francisco: Between the Inhale and the Exhale My Past, Present & Future Convened

Reverb Prompt: Which little detail — something you saw… a look… a touch… a fleeting moment — from 2012 would you like to remember in the years to come? The most difficult part of this prompt is remember where it greeted me... ohhh... there. Day 17 from Relish12.

For just a moment I was dizzy with unsteadyness. I looked up and spun around, attempting to figure out where my body was in relationship with the glorious vibe of San Francisco

From the San Francisco Financial District - Can you believe this man is casually texting while leaning on the Robert Frost Memorial? Ay!

Unbelievably for me, I was visiting San Francisco with no destination in mind. I had several possibilities but nothing was in stone. I have sort of learned my way around the City but for some reason I didn’t want to bother with navigation and after a lovely greeting from native son Robert Frost I noticed a cable car had appeared so without thinking, I jumped on it.

A few moments later at the intersection of California and Mason, I jumped off the cable car, feeling an incredible urge. Even with that incredible urge I did the “should I shouldn’t I shuffle” before I leaped from my six dollar seat of a rather short cable car ride.

I scurried across the street and my eyes caught the Fairmont Hotel.

If you take away the Christmas Decorations, the Fairmont looked exactly as it did on that July day in... 1988? I believe?

I actually gasped the forty degree misty air straight into my gut.

This is where Mel and Tom got married on a Saturday in July before I knew how challenging many of the upcoming chapters of my life would be.

From that moment on, I went where I was divinely directed. Every single destination I found had some personal connection with me, as if my past was reaching out to massage my ever tense shoulders, saying, “You are a survivor, you are one who loves a lot and loves well. Continue your journey knowing that you are love incarnate.”

I will remember this “eye-to-eye” glance from my past, present and future for a long time to come.

Now that I have written it, I will more than likely remember it forever.

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott

Writing Writing, Please Tell Me, What is my Subject Going to be?

The first thought to pop off the end of my pencil this morning was, “I woke up thinking what I am to write today…” actually, my conscious mind thought, “What am I to write today….” But in the translation between my mind and my pencil, my pencil won.

Its stubborn word-flip flop asked me to investigate who I am as a writer and a communicator for the world rather than looking around for some assignment to float, featherlike, into my line of vision and pluck it from the air to write it and share it with you.

What am I to write today?

The clichés push their way to the forefront of my mind: love, community, presence, passion, family.

My secondary clichés show up, wishing I would for once make them first: color, harmony, friendship, creativity, poetry and travel.

I close my eyes and again, automatically put my hands into a prayer position and rest my face on them. It isn’t even six a.m. yet this writing – right here – this writing you are reading is not letting me go. This writing is holding me in its arms, asking me to give it voice.

I request permission for coffee which it grants. I put socks on my feet before I pace across the hardwood floor of my dining room. I hear my household beginning to awaken.

My journey into my kitchen includes feeding my cat, Alice, who meows for my attention. I grant it to her. I pour my coffee into the Zion National Park mug which asked to come home with me from Utah last Summer. I turn to see the Christmas lights were left on all night. It is still so dark outside, it could be midnight.

It isn’t, it was 5:56 when I last looked at my clock.

I grab my phone to record the darkness next to the color.

I hear water, a shower, perhaps.

I hear Emma’s alarm sing: Taylor Swift, to be precise.

I walk into the cold to snap a shot, to catalog my day visually.

I walk back into the house and hear the jingle bell on the inside. I smell the coffee.

I return to my desk, realizing in each and all of those steps I am writing.

Today may become a day for drawing writing subjects from a jar.

It may be a day of brainstorming or mindmapping or perhaps a day where freewriting reigns.

I may stay plugged into my desk for most of the morning or I may go to meditation, instead. I may republish an old gem. I consider one from last December, writing about community. I decline that invitation.

I reflect on the weekend in San Francisco and scribble, “No destination leads to my exact destination” and realize that is who I am what I am how I am to write today.

 

Will you come with me, too? Who are you to write today?

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Sc

What I Need is a Conscious, Unfreaky Friday to Discover How Samuel Lives

My Sweet Samuel literally "up a tree" - Due to his autism, his senses are acute & he processes differently than I do.

Sometimes I wish I could step into my son Samuel’s body so I could experience the world through his senses and his thoughts for a day or so. I would think of it as a version of a highly conscious unfreaky Friday.

I know his senses are heightened and I know he has anxiety. I know his language processing is different, but I wonder how different?

Maybe there were moments yesterday that felt like he feels.

Yesterday  I had a sense of foreboding. This is not an uncommon feeling since my cancer diagnosis.

My affect was flat, each movement felt like a bigger commitment than I could manage.  I went to Emma’s school to drop off her change of clothes after a choir gig and every step was a marathon. I found my way into her choir room and then, I had to find her. I looked here and there and I rounded a corner and there she was, sitting in a circle with a group of friends, talking and happy.

They stopped talking when they saw me. Emma leaped up and hugged me, saying, “Mommy, you’re the best.” She couldn’t tell how close I was to crying. When I mentioned it later I said, “It is so weird, I feel like I need to cry but it isn’t like there is any sort of reason for it, I just want to cry.”

I attempted to explain it to a friend, this feeling of anticipation of rather than the best is yet to be, the worst is ready to drop on my head at any moment.

I tend toward the optimistic perspective. Pollyanna is my friend. I was writing gratitude lists long before everyone else jumped on the bandwagon, but I have also come to know there is occasionally a tipping point that happens, that final nudge that pushes you off the, “Oh, yeah, I’m doing decently” ledge.

One of my primary areas of focus in 2013 is rebirthing my creative life coaching and personal development business. I have done very well in the past, but during my variety of lifetime movie themed situations, I let go of developing my business. This Fall, with my Melanoma and surgery and recovery, I haven’t taught any classes for my own business although I did continue doing contract and freelance work at the barest of minimums.

I said to my friend, “I think I have tapped into a very specific and quietly insidious part of my fear. Somehow I believe if I get as successful as I was before my avalanche of crises happened, I will have another avalanche of crises. There are no promises this one wouldn’t bury me,” I said, recognizing the whole time how ridiculous this sounds and how contrary to the way I speak, write and know much of the time.

One example was having constant fear for whatever Samuel may be encountering at school on any given day. I told my friend, “When he was in kindergarten they called me sometimes several times a week, asking me to take Samuel home because of some problem or another.” I paused. “It isn’t as bad now, but I am always on alert….especially after the troubles in fourth grade.”

Later in the afternoon my phone rang. It was the principal saying Samuel had been involved in an altercation and there were two other boys involved who not only got sent to his office, they got suspended for a couple days. He reiterated Samuel did nothing wrong, but he wanted me to know so I could see if Samuel would talk to me.

There was only one other time Samuel had a situation arise similar to this and it caused the other student to be suspended for five days.

This is the reality of his life. I can’t protect him twenty-four hours a day. We have chosen main streaming specifically because I don’t want him to be stuffed into a special ed ghetto where he is separate from all the neurotypical kids. He is smart enough to go to college and get a job someday where not everyone will be a person with autism. He needs to know how to relate to all people, even those who are rotten to him.

The other kids need to learn to befriend unique children. They need to learn the world is made up of many different forms and versions of human beings, not just Jane or Joe Average.

He also needs to have allies: teachers, principals, other students who are friends with him who actually like him.

I picked Samuel up from his after school program and he was in a great mood. He was happy and pleasant.

I thought, “Maybe he feels cared for by the Principal since Samuel knew the Principal “had his back” so Samuel would feel safer.” I’m not sure, but now that I know I will be able to talk to Samuel about it. My fear of Junior High has now increased, but my trust in his current school has also increased. The Principal has a new plan to insure there won’t be a repeat of this situation involving personnel being involved in monitoring the playground more effectively.

For the meantime, I need to remember I get to choose how I respond to situations that threw me so far off kilter when I set aside my business the last time because of crises in my personal life. I can choose to not be upset by it and calmly look at the facts as the intelligent woman I know I am.

Today, my mood is much better. There isn’t concrete in my feet. I don’t feel like I am about to burst into tears. I am taking care of myself well.

Sometimes I wish I could step into Samuel’s body so I could experience the world through his senses and his thoughts for a day or so. It would be a conscious sort of unfreaky Friday.

 

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Sc