I have been known to say, “If it isn’t fun, I’m not doing it.”
This isn’t always true. In fact, I do a lot of things I find less than pleasant at the request of someone I either love and respect (or both) AND I know my life is much sweeter when I focus on tasks I can do while simultaneously having a darned good time.
Sometimes on the outer crust, a darned good time looks impossible. That’s when the real fun kicks in.
I don’t know if this was what Mary Oliver had in mind when she wrote, “'Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable,” but this definitely fits the bill.
I occasionally host something I call “Passion Activator Friday.” Other people call the almost identical activity “integrity day” but that sounds so heavy and so not fun at all that I shift it about to make it ridiculously fun.
During Passion Activator Friday we start with a to-do list and throughout the day we check stuff off and cheer others along with their lists and activities. It is a fabulous way to be super productive. Energizing doesn’t begin to describe it.
Yet in my mind “integrity day” sounds like something I should do, something the well-behaved, always wearing matched socks people do.
Passion Activator Friday sounds like something people who laugh too loud do. People like me, who get messy and make mistakes and speak playfully and understand grace and forgiveness and the occasional bout of forgetfulness.
Because I love to write, I can’t imagine anyone finding it anything but fun, but I have come to learn some people see writing as a drudgery. This literally makes my own heart sink deeper in my chest so naturally I do what I do best: think up ways to make it fun.
That’s what you see here: morning pages met mixed media glued onto a page. I wrote my standard two pages free writing on my morning pages and then on a third page I cut painted book page petals and created a flower. In the center I tore a fresh book page and circled two prompt words “moment” and “wagged” and then wrote on that page on that seemingly disconnected topic.
I remembered doing QiGong in our women’s story circle and I especially remembered how we sometimes “wag our tail” like a happy puppy or like a duck, drying herself off after a swim. When I look around the circle in those times I see smiles on each face, totally present to how silly we are and how tremendous we are, how free we are in that moment.
That’s what wagging a moment is about, actually. Being present, being alive, letting passion be what you feel whether the outside world would label that passion good or bad or horrible or ecstatic.
This realization? So much fun! You reading these words? More fun still!
This is yet another reason why I love writing. And hope from this moment, you will love it even a smidge more, too.
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Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in Spring, 2015 and beyond.
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