Today's topic from #BlogFlash2012 - which I am joining almost half-way through the month - is CHILDREN. My most common computer password expresses, everytime I log into a website or what have you, how much I adore my children. My first internet handle was "luvmibabies" - yes, I am a mother hooked on her children.
I have heard rumors that most Mothers & Daughters go through a horrible season or two between ages 9 and 18 before they can actually look each other in the eye again.
I must have done something wrong in the parenting department. My daughters and I have never gone through that “Who is this female under my roof who looks somewhat like me but is so annoying I can’t stand to be in the same room as her!”
My formula for parenting success, though, isn’t an easy one either.
My belief is we were bound together by the not-so-great times so we cherish each other that much more in all the other times. We thrive on vulnerability, transparency and love. We have each others backs. We see the best in each other. We appreciate each other’s idiosyncrasies.
Last night my children and I had a slumber party in my living room. My daughters, my eleven-year-old son and I all chose a different spot and we laughed our way to sleep.
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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I found a new playground to make new friends -Aloha Friday
I learned this from our lovely hostess Kailani. “In Hawaii, Aloha Friday is the day that we take it easy and look forward to the weekend. So I thought that on Fridays I would take it easy on posting, too.”
So, with that in mind, she continues “Therefore, I’ll ask a simple question for you to answer. Nothing that requires a lengthy response. If you’d like to participate, just post your own question on your blog and leave your Aloha Friday post link below. Also, please consider linking back to this post so that others can join in, too!”
And then…. A question, any question is asked of those hopping blogs making new friends, too. If you would like to link up, too (hopefully after you read my question!) Visit Aloha Friday here.
So my question is what is something you have been saying you wanted to try but haven’t yet? (Optional Bonus Question – what’s stopping you?) + a quick Pre-S for the folks from Aloha Friday - for some reason a lot of wordpress blogs block my comments... as they have from many of your blogs I have visited. Please check your sp@m boxes... because I have enjoyed answering your questions & hope to get to know 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 -
I don’t like to be the bearer of bad news, but while you are on your blissful vacation getaway with your family, there will be tension. There will be crankyness. There will be botched communication.
If you are roadtripping, you will miscalculate miles. You may not stay at the hotel you planned to stay in and if you couchsurf like we do, you may have to write to your planned hosts and say, “Sorry, we can’t come stay with you after all.
Believe it or not, hosts look forward to having couchsurfing guests, even rag tag lots like us. I am chronically afraid of disappointing people.
It wasn’t daily but it was near daily when we were going from nature spot to nature spot that Emma verbally lashed out at me for making her attend this worst ever family vacation and why do we go on these stupid vacations because we always end up hating each other.
I listened, I agreed with most of what she said, but I had to deny the hating each other part.
Yes, it wasn’t her idea of nirvana like it was my idea of nirvana, but we will remember certain things until the end of time. Things like Samuel’s silent but deadly farts that were so bad, we had to roll down our windows to keep from coughing “to death” Katherine would shriek, “Samuel, you are killing us!”
This, naturally, would make Samuel laugh, howl and fart more.
He is eleven. I think we will have many years in the future of Samuel farting when the roadside gets uninteresting to him. He can fart and entertain himself by making his sisters scream and then laugh hysterically. He is the star!
I like to think (delude myself?) I have raised my children to be healthy by nature of allowing them to speak up about how they are feeling. I come from a long line of WASPy people who don’t believe in emotions and certainly don’t believe in airing their emotions to anyone unless they are happy, content or an accomplishment laundry list.
I allow Emma to complain. I allow Samuel to fart. I allow Samuel’s rituals to stay intact as much as I can.
I allow them to see ME have a rough time.
Traveling alone with three children – even when one of them is twenty-years-old – isn’t easy.
Tomorrow I will share with you my biggest secret trick that helped make this entire trip happier for each of us. It is a secret trick you can easily replicate. I can see you smiling from here –
Now, just watch out for those silent by deadly gas emissions.
And know that if your daughter is upset, let her say it and then watch the venom dissipate. If you insist she hold it in, your vacation will quickly go further downhill.
Happy Travels!
Writing Challenge:
Tell about a time when you were cranky and lived to tell the tale. What solutions did you find? Please share your stories with us!
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 -
It was tricky, planning this adventure in National Parks (and in some cases Monuments or State Parks) to try to keep each of my children happy and engaged.
Emma, my almost fifteen-year-old, has no qualms about complaining daily about how miserable she was and how much she would rather be home.
I was ready to just shelve the rest of the trip after we visited The Arches in Utah simply because she and Samuel were so miserable. Not only did I feel selfish, I felt like all my adventuring was pretty pointless if half the group felt like our road trip was akin to getting a root canal without any pain medication.
When I made this proclamation - "We'll just go home now, I know you aren't enjoying this stuff and it was organized by me to visit places I would enjoy" to our traveling band of warriors, I wasn’t expecting Katherine to break down in tears. Like me, she had wanted to visit Zion National Park for a long time AND she wanted to complete the tail end of the trip in Laughlin, Nevada, which is a traditional quirky stopping point for our family.
I think Emma and Samuel were surprised, too. Katherine doesn’t usually emote that strongly, she usually takes everything in stride.
I thanked her for sticking up for herself because I have a weakness in that area, obviously.
We headed out that morning with a fairly clean canvas. Before heading West to Zion, we decided to go to a place we hadn’t heard about until the evening before at a coffee shop/truck stop establishment in the town of Green River, Utah.
I had done a google search about this town and quickly fell in love with it for several reasons. They were like a town that refused to die. It refused to give up. It was proud and willing to do whatever it would take to keep going, even with some crumbling infrastructure and buildings that might have been quickly condemned and torn down in other spaces, plucky little Green River kept going.
Our waitress, Miranda, explained how to get to the Crystal Geyser, a rare cold water geyser. “I was there last night,” she said. “It is pretty out there…” she paused… “well, I think its pretty.”
Being from Bakersfield and seeing what Utah had offered so far, we agreed to travel along a questionable dirt road for seven miles to see the geyser up close and personal.
What seemed ridiculous on that seven mile drive turned out to be Emma’s favorite destination on the trip – until we got to outlet stores and Vegas, naturally.
There was no one else at the remote spot which gave it an otherworldly quality beyond the strange orangey rock surrounding the geyser. Each child got up close and personal with the spout, which was rusted and dingy yet also oddly beautiful.
We spent time just sitting near the geyser, checking it out, wishing it would have one of its twice daily eruptions while we meandered along its edges.
It didn’t.
And we didn’t even mind that it didn’t.
It was a space where we were able to reconnect with each other and enjoy the moment in this odd oasis, each of us, for our own personal reasons.
“I have never seen anything like this in my whole life,” Emma said.
Katherine took a wide armed siesta on the bed the orange rock surface.
Samuel investigated what happened with different weights and sizes of rocks when you tossed them into the water. There were either big bubbles, little bubbles, loud burps or virtually nothing dependent upon weight and density of the rock.
I was able to take some cool textural photos as well as photos of my children. It had been a long time since I had taken photos of “nothing” that ended up fascinating me.
Sometimes replenishment comes from famous over-the-top beautiful spaces.
On this day, replenishment came from the quirky, way off the beaten path natural wonder no other travelers seemed to know existed.
I got a nudge just now to type something completely ego centric.
Normally I wouldn’t do that because I like to think I am humble and don’t like to ever suppose anything happens simply for my favor. The nudge is insistent so here it goes:
It almost seemed, in those moments, like the little town of Green River, Utah, existed so that we could repair our relationship to each other and to this journey on that sunny morning.
It didn’t matter if the geyser erupted for us to oooh and ahhh, what mattered was our hearts erupted again as we remembered why we were on this adventure in the first place: because we shared love with each other and wanted to be together.
My children may debate with me about that reason for adventuring, but I am sticking to it.
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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I didn’t know leaves could wear so many shades of green. There is no memory of such greens on any trees from my past experience.
I also don’t remember when I first learned about Mesa Verde. I know it was sometime in childhood, sometime when I spent my days in classrooms with black chalkboards and long banners showing perfect cursive penmanship (or today, penpersonship) atop the bulletin boards.
I looked at pictures of the cliff dwellings in Colorado and wished, hoped, prayed I would someday go there even though the thought of climbing down ladders to access the ruins frightened me even then.
It may have been a text book that turned me on to Mesa Verde. I found one on Amazon published in 1961 by a gentleman named Don Watson. Perhaps that was my trigger. The Pueblo Indians are a long way from the New Jersey Leni Lenape our teachers faithfully taught us in Linden Avenue School. Maybe it was that my mother was born in Colorado. The kinship I felt came from my mother’s soul-bloodline so I felt to the Puebloan Natives of the 13th or so century.
The today Julie might say, “These dwellings were being built when Rumi was writing his poetry. There is the connection!”
Fact is, I don’t know and I will most likely never know but I may continue to surmise.
I do remember standing on the edge of the canyon and looking down, not too terribly far, and seeing dwellings. It was just a week ago yet it seems like it was forever ago and just a split second past.
There they were: just like the photos I remember as a little girl.
The path we chose was a paved one. It was also wheelchair friendly, something I didn’t know they had in Mesa Verde. I was still holding the belief I would need to hoist myself up and down a scary ladder across a grueling precipice.
None of that was true.
Well, none of that was true in this particular spot at Mesa Verde.
Samuel and Katherine walked ahead of me on the path. Emma gave up before she started. I slowly, ploddingly in places, made the trip down the path. I preferred it this way. I liked feeling as if the dwellings and the people who once lived in them were wooing me with the slight breeze and the mottled pathway, shaded by leaves I didn’t know in many shades of green.
Everything green is unique here, I discovered. It isn’t a flat green or a sort of brownish, faded, choking “I need water!” green I see so often in my Bakersfield landscape. The green on these trees seemed to celebrate the fact I was finally showing up. I was finally listening to the invitation they extended to that little girl at Linden Avenue School so many years in the past.
One irony of this dream finally come true is I didn’t even know consciously it was waiting.
When we planned to visit Cortez, Colorado on our trip the sole reason was its proximity to the border. I wanted to give my children the experience of as many states as possible. They’ve covered lots of ground in the past from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota to California, Arizona and Nevada. We needed to fill out the rest of the west with Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and the Navajo Nation.
I didn’t realize I would be dipping into a romance long dormant not unlike the dormant romances I have had in the past with theater and poetry and photography.
I didn’t know leaves could wear so many shades of green before that warm day last week when I stood in front of these centuries old Pueblo homes. I didn’t know until I looked outside the kiva room from buildings some people call ruins but I prefer to call “Places Left Behind.”
There are so many things to say about this and I plan to gently unfold the almost here and now memories over the next several days.
When I was traveling I kept saying, “I can’t wordify this! I can’t write this” and until I sat down today to write, I made that belief into truth.
I didn’t even dare bring my notebook with me. It wasn’t until later in our journey that I started jotting notes in my cell phone. It all felt like too much, too grand an extension of the reality I thought I knew.
Like I made the dream I had forgotten into truth, I will begin to translate my experience here, now, for 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.
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Today – August 7, 2012 - met me in the same way a seventh grade girl, Melanie, meets her longtime crush, Joey, on the edge of the dance floor. Unsure, a bit wobbly, and slow to make a move forward, morning and I wondered at first if anything would happen or if I would pull away, refusing to believe our relationship would ever feel the same as it did when Joey and Melanie were in second grade, sitting side by side at desks in Mrs. Anderson’s classroom at Linden Avenue School.
First I poured a cup of coffee.
Second I gathered my notebook and pen and went outside.
Third I drew a random soul collage card.
Fourth, I made myself write.
Looking at the card I wrote, “I have a history of hiding under a blanket of darkness. Divinity clothes me in white when she does my bidding. I sit in the center of paradox: the this and the that, the hovering tightrope slowly unraveling, an awkward unwinnable tug-of-war and the solid cord hung firmly and the confident collaboration, singing songs of cheer upon successful completion.
I notice water droplets of water on the leaves.
Sitting here, moving my pen, being a faithful companion to my writing is key to living my story.
This dress on the little girl is so similar to what my Mom would have made me.
I want to remember Mom meant her dresses as testaments to her love for me which she wasn’t able to translate into the language you spoke and still speak. This doesn’t minimize her love.
I want to remember that earlier this Summer I learned about Wolf Lichen after mistakenly calling it “moss” after all these years.
My Rilke reading earlier was another significant companion:
From Wer seines Lebens viele Widersinne:
She who reconciles the ill matched threads
of her life, and weaves them gratefully
into a single cloth –
it’s she who drives the loudmouths from the hall
and clears it for a different celebration
These reminders pour through my hands onto the page.
I look at the collage card, I look at Rilke’s words, I write: “It feels so grand to sit on my front porch, the gentle wind feels like a zen gardener tending my forehead. Worry erased by house finch.”
Melanie holds Joey with just the right closeness as their slow dance comes to its conclusion.
She can feel his breath against her neck, his hands respectfully above her waist.
She is both naïve and knowing. She is a paradox who is a human truth in the making.
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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It is a well known fact that I abhor shopping. I abhor grocery shopping, clothes shopping, much of Christmas shopping. The only sort of shopping I routinely enjoy is thrifting or flea market shopping, possibly because it is akin to a treasure hunt rather than an expedition into “what is hip and cool today and will be out of fashion before Christmas Vacation.”
My other shopping love, though, is two-fold and related tangentially to school.
I love buying office/school supplies and books.
Lots of books.
I love sitting in book stores and writing, people watching, eavesdropping my way into literary heaven.
I did this yesterday and it was like being at a spa. I spent ten bucks on bargain box books, too, but mostly I read books I didn’t buy but may later. I read poetry and cried. I took notes and I cried. I watched people and wrote poetry and cried.
If only I could look at back to school clothing shopping in the same way!
When we were on vacation I managed to buy my daughters some jeans and some bras. I loved it because at the Levi outlet they did personalized jean fitting for each girl. Their waists were measured and their hips were measured and they were assigned a certain level of curve. They could choose which rise they wanted and which cut they wanted and how much blue of the denim they wanted.
This, I thought, was cool yet I still sat on a bench outside the store while they tried on and made choices.
I also took them to a bra shop where they could be measured again to find the perfect size. Emma thought they measured her too small because for some inexplicable reason the girls in her tenth grade class somehow view beauty according to cup size.
She did manage to buy a couple bras and some cute panties, another necessity for theater dressing rooms and p.e. locker rooms I am told.
Give me books, give me stationery, give me old stuff and art supplies any day. I’ll shop for hours, I’ll lose track of time. Today’s clothes, no thanks. Sorry, loves. I want a sewing machine for that and Clinton and Stacey on What Not to Wear would probably shake their perfectly coifed heads at me.
I can’t help it.
I don’t even want to help it.
Just like I don’t even want to shop! Unless, ofcourse for.,... well, you heard enough about that!
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 -
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.
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:::
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 -
(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.)
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 -
I wrote this yesterday as if I was speaking to my fourteen-year-old daughter, Emma. I imagined a friend was mad at her... which, by the way, turned out to not be the case AT ALL!
These past choices you thought were the right ones, the faded brick colored blocks that created the foundation you walk upon now daily.
You can’t let them bother you.
What you can do, though, is pick your foot up and put it down. You can learn from the choices made that weren’t, after all, the best for you.
You can forgive yourself.
You may request forgiveness of others.
You thought your choice was the best choice for the moment. Some may fault you for this. You may let their judgment go and pray they will, eventually, return to you if not with compassion at least with a willingness to let it go, too, to let the bother be exfoliated from their system.
Don’t let it bother you because the bother lasts so much longer than the originating choice and follow through did. Make reparations. Smile. Breathe deeply and aim for now and your next nows.
Don’t let it bother you that others don’t understand you and may not even want to take the effort to understand you.
Don’t let it bother you that the past you is more than a tiny bit embarrassing to the now you.
Some people may have found her cute. Even though you abhor that word, cute, let it be, my love, just let it be.
Keep writing away any pain that comes when you forget to not let it bother you.
Then pick up your foot and put it down. Repeat. Again. And. Again.
This is my also 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 9/31 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.
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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