Julie Unplugged

Cultivating Relationships: Starting at the Very Beginning - with our Parents

Today's prompt from Meredith and her Cultivate12 project:

Parents: Whether they're still alive or long since passed, biological or adopted, our parents were the first people to teach us about relationships. How can you cultivate a stronger, healthier relationship with them? How can you reconcile your past with your present and future?

I am blessed. My relationship with my parents just keeps getting better.

They are celebrating their sixtieth wedding anniversary on December 26. The party will include one fewer child for them, my brother John passed away in between the fiftieth anniversary and this one. They will have their first Great Grandchild: darling Paloma. I imagine my niece will be there: the one who my sister gave up for adoption and we miraculously found her… I can’t remember the exact dates, but I know she wasn’t at the last party.

My Dad & My Kids hiking & geocaching several years ago in Flagstaff

My parents have gotten softer as they’ve gotten older. Their blacks and whites are smudgy. My Dad is always happy. He loves where he lives, he is very active, and when he answers the phone we actually talk. In the old days he would answer and immediately pass me over to Mom.

Dad and I share interests: I visited an abandoned Mill in Northern California and I called my Dad, so excited to tell him.

When my daughter had a history project, Mom sent a geneology report. My happiest finding is the first child born in the United States from my mother’s side of the family was named Samuel and there are many, many Samuel’s in our family tree.

I didn’t know this when I named my Samuel.

Nana & Emma bonding with pumpkins and apples in Tehachapi this October

Mom visited in October after my surgery. We had perhaps our best visit yet. We made stuff together, we visited an art museum, we laughed together and we picked apples and pumpkins together. The unique pumpkin she picked out became a jack-o-lantern in one of the spots where my brother John’s ashes are buried.

She had it photographed it for me. It is almost like I was there. John and I were exceptionally close, so it meant more than words can say to be “included” in the celebration.

I will continue to do as I have been doing: caring, communicating and experiencing life together.

It is never enough since they live in Flagstaff and I live in Bakersfield, but via Facebook – I get to “see” them regularly.

 

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott

Seriously? I wrote five minutes on the wrong theme? ohhhhh....#FiveMinuteFriday friends, how will I ever trust Nora?

Trust: I shook my head when I saw today’s Five Minute Friday theme.

Seriously? I trusted I had simple basal cell carcinoma so when I got the call Wednesday that I had melanoma (what I referred to as the BIG M) I was somewhat upset and discouraged.

I mean, I was beside myself with fear and cried a lot that first night.

Once things were in motion with the diagnosis though, it was on warped speed. An appointment with the surgeon, pre-op work, surgery scheduled for a week from yesterday.

Everyone is so pleasant.

I even named my melanoma. Nora. Nora, my melanoma housemate.

I know, call me crazy.

I have to relax into trusting when it comes to stuff like this. I was afraid to get an EKG today, but I went in and rested myself on the table and thought about love and patience and prayer and sang a bit inside my head and the nurse/tech raved about the beauty of my EKG. It was NORMAL! Which means a lot to someone who has cancer attached to her face.

All of a sudden I am very, very sleepy.

Trusting, to me, is a lot like saying Yes. I agree to this. I know everything will be. Just right. That I have so many friends praying for me and loving me right now, it’s almost unfathomable especially because I felt foolish even seeing the doctor for the pink spot on my face.

Nora and I will be spending our last few days together crafting, writing and perhaps visiting the beach with the children.

We’ll toast to the end of our time together.

I will trust the farewell will be amiable and she will never, ever feel the need to return.

This is my weekly Five Minute Friday post. Simple to do, awesome to read and greet the other women doing exactly the same thing. Want to try it out? Here are the guidelines:

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link at LisaJoBaker.com 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..

 

Follow me on Twitter: @juliejordanscot 

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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. 

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Accepting the Biopsy Dare: I absolutely will not let this "thing" stop me.

I sat at my computer this morning at first feeling very inspired and then my inspiration immediately dropped when I haphazardly poked around google and blahdy blah nothing very interesting and wasted a good hour of my prime time for creativity. Seriously! What was I thinking or obviously I had shut down into the NOT thinking mode.

I started to do some research, then, on online courses where I could get my master’s degree. I am a ridiculously good teacher and I am absolutely wasting my talent, which is very selfish of me.

Especially when I think about the biopsy I had yesterday.

I won’t know for a week if I have skin cancer or not, but I do know that I absolutely will not let my fear or worry get in the way of anymore good things in my life. It is as if this… on my paperwork they had a name for it I didn’t recognize –  neoplasm this dark pink growing polka dot on my skin has now become my biggest cheerleader, my biggest “get off your ass and get yourself out there more!” chant.

I posted on twitter yesterday that my circular band aid looks like it is winking at me, cheering me on.

I looked into the mirror just now and smiled and winked back: I accept that dare, face. I accept that dare, spirit. I accept that dare, beloved children of mine.

It feels so much better than worrying incessantly!

My mantra today is “I absolutely will not let fear or anxiety or not knowing the future stop me from accepting this dare to get my heart back to racing with glee, with productivity and with that passionate stamp that says, I am the passionate, the one and only Julie Jordan Scott and my job is so far from done so ever step must be for now and tomorrow’s now. I accept the dare.”

BloggyMoms September Blog Dare Prompt:

I absolutely will not...

 

 

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. 

Did you enjoy 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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What is that title for the Book about Genius and Memory Again? Do you know?

Today's prompt....As I grow older...

I realize how much my memory is diminishing its ability to recall data – primarily stuff I have committed to do with dates attached that I have completely forgotten until #1 – I have disappointed someone by forgetting or #2 – I am reminded right when I am about to miss something which puts me completely off kilter or #3 – I hear later that so-and-so was hurt when I didn’t or did something I had forgotten about entirely.

It happened again this week.

I felt so terrible and I immediately jumped to fix it as best as I could, but I know the damage may have been unfixable. I still don’t know exactly.

I was in Barnes and Noble this weekend and I saw a book there about Memory. It is a sort of how to improve your memory using the same skills as geniuses across the ages have done it. I want to buy it, preferably on Amazon for the discount, but I can’t remember the title or the author.

See what I mean?

I can remember ridiculous details about the coat room from my second grade experience, but I can’t remember I said I would have coffee with a former co-worker at 9:30 at Dagny’s on Tuesday. 

I decided I am going to start using a calendar ap on my phone that will remind me of things. I can see no other way to fix this, at least until I go back to Barnes and Noble and text myself the name of the author and the title of that… oh, yes. Of that book about genius and memory.

 

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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