My five minute "brain dump" took a while to begin this morning. The result may be confusing - me writing a letter to myself - but eventually it worked. Kind of, sort of, it is what it is.
Dear Me,
We opened up a blank document an hour ago to write for five minutes and then we walked away. Poured a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee. We briefly considered what to write about - thought about Walt sleeping at my feet, sleeping beside my bed (he just snorted, must know I’m writing about him.) We thought about Meister Eckhart and Dag Hammerskjold. We thought about the people populating our thoughts and experiences.
We thought about our body, bleeding. Still. This is ridiculous, ineffective and irrelevant. Stop the bleed, for goodness sakes. Why today? Why when I am supposed to be going to one of my favorite natural spaces where I won’t go if my uterus is shedding blood it doesn’t need to build up anymore because there clearly aren’t going to be any more babies springing from my womb.
We are a tenacious lot - the Jordan Clan - but seriously, this monthly bleed did its thing well when it made sense to exist. The withholding of the blood cradled my five babies during their time in the consecutively shared womb space. Only three survived outside my body’s nursery. I’ve dealt with the losses and will continue to do so.
I used to think I would grieve when menopause came upon me but now I am jealous when my friends tell me the change has long come and gone. I’ve been bleeding for forty two years, people. Forty two years. I had breaks when pregnant and nursing so I could honestly subtract a few years from that mix but post pregnancy there was always the lochia and that was horrid, too.
After Marlena died, I created my hope chest ritual. Every month when I had a menses I didn’t want, I would buy something for the baby who would eventually be born. I told my children about this last week. “So I got all the things from the hope chest,” Katherine reasoned.
“No, actually you all did. You all got something.”
I gave the girls some vintage baby clothes I bought at an estate sale as I told the story. “For your hope chest.” The baby hope chest. I never had a marriage hope chest, but oh, how I always wanted babies.
Maybe it is the latent hope and deep desire for babies that my body hears and continues to respond to even now.
Looks like my topic found us.
Thank you, me, for always helping us find the way.
With Love,
Me
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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. This is writing in the raw.
- Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
- Link back to the AllThingsFadra.com post (feel free to use the SOC Sunday graphic).
- Add your post below (be sure to use the permalink to your post, not your blog’s URL; and only NEW posts please).
- Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.
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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.
To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.
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