August 17, 2012

How Katherine Got Her Name: This story has never been told like this before....

As I sat to write today's Summer Blog Challenge, I realize I have never told this story this completely. Every time I tell it, write it, share it, I almost don't... for a number of reasons. Then I reminded myself. I am a storyteller. The stories I share are a gift to the world. I have no way to know who needs to read this exact story at this exact time and if I don't share it, they won't hear it. I am meant to share it. With that, here is my response to -

How did your child get her name?

I wonder if other people feel compelled to answer with paragraphs of back story in response to questions or do they have the ability to just spit out the answer?

My spit out answer goes like this: Katherine was named for a dear friend of mine who cared for me while I was pregnant with my long awaited baby. She went with me to ultrasounds, doctors appointments and took phone calls from me whenever I was scared or anxious.

Plus her Dad’s name starts with K so it felt like I was honoring him, too.

That’s the spit out answer.

The longer answer includes these bits of backstory:

I tried to have my first baby for three years. THREE YEARS seems so impossible now, two decades later. Being pregnant was a dream come true: it was a fantastic pregnancy. I had no morning sickness, I had a deliriously happy family. We had bought our first home, Ken passed the bar exam on the first try: it felt like I was living in an altered state of wonderfulness. I couldn’t be happier until that snowy day in February.

I think I knew it at 8:30 in the morning when I felt what reminded me of a menstrual cramp except it wrapped around me from back to front, from bottom to top.

“Braxton-Hicks,” I insisted. “It is only Braxton-Hicks.” I was six weeks early, after all, Braxton-Hicks contractions were normal.

Shortly after that I started to have very slight bleeding and the “Braxton-Hicks” continued. They weren’t painful, I was merely aware of them coming and going just like the blood would come and go. My doctor’s office reassured me, telling me to lie down on my left side and call if it got worse.

I called some people to not be lonely. People offered to come to me, I told them “No, no, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me, everything is fine!”

It wasn’t fine.

Ken got home from work at about 7:30 and the Braxton-Hicks no longer felt like Braxton-Hicks. He wanted to take me to the hospital. I refused. I wanted to take a shower. Totally irrational… sounds like a woman in labor, right? I got into the shower and only reported half of the contractions that came, not all of them. They were pretty consistent at about five minutes apart or less.

When I got out of the shower I added vomiting to my labor dance and Ken stopped listening to me.

“We’re going to the hospital!” he said. I don’t remember dressing. I didn’t take anything with me, I just silently agreed. I know I wore black maternity pants. I don’t remember the shirt, though I think it was a red Motherhood maternity top my friend had given me.

We started driving from our home in Pine Mountain Club, which is about an hour from the hospital in Bakersfield. I stared at the clock, timing the contractions without telling Ken what I was doing because I didn’t want to scare him.

Fifteen minutes into the drive they stopped. I started breathing. It seemed to be over.

I relaxed my shoulders.

It was on the freeway on-ramp my water literally sprayed from me, like a fountain, all over the dashboard of the car. I stayed silent. I don’t think either Ken or I said a word.

Now I knew I couldn’t deny it.

I put my feet on the dash so I was sort of rolled up into an upward facing fetal position, my bottom hanging half off the front seat. No more pain, only the compelling need to bear down. I felt my perineum heat up. I knew from my three years of reading what that meant. I had a flash of pride for my body being able to do this.

I bore down. My baby’s head was released from my body.

I screamed. With tears in my voice I said to Ken, “Can you call an ambulance?”

Ken countered, “There is no time!” We were in a rural area. There were no cell phones then. It was just the three of us in a black Friday night hurtling toward the hospital. I felt the need to bear down again. The rest of her little body was released from me.

She was somehow, thought I didn’t know how at the time, somehow not coming from the cradle I made with my lower body. I held her there as we continued.

“Our baby is dead,” I said, with no emotion.

Ken kept driving. When we got to the hospital he ran inside and a large group of people came running out with a wheelchair which somehow I got into. They got my clothes off without me doing anything and somehow without me having any awareness, I was lying on an exam table in the room where they usually take rape victims as well as, I guess now when I reflect on it, women with gynecological or obstetric emergencies.

One of my doctor’s partners came into the room. He took a moment and then said to me, whispering in my ear with great compassion, “You had a girl.”

I never held my daughter. She was whisked from the room in a tupperware like box that had blue liquid in it. I saw the outline of her body inside the nearly clear container. Still now, twenty three plus years later this sight makes me cry.

They took away the black maternity pants which were covered in blood and gave me scrubs to wear home. I threw them away, too. I got more cards then I could count. I hand wrote thank you notes to everyone who wrote to me, including my friend Katherine's grandma who said, "I have never gotten a thank you note like this before."

Twenty-two months later on Christmas Morning I gave birth to my Katherine. A three hour labor, again unmedicated, this time with a living baby born three weeks early as a reward.

My friend Katherine was going to be there at the birth but again, I was in denial until I was at the hospital “to get checked” that I was going to give birth. Who gives birth on Christmas morning?

My Mother told me she knew it was Marlena, my baby who died, and God, conspiring to give me an unforgettable Christmas gift.

Marlena’s sister, Katherine, is now waiting to go to University of Edinburgh in Scotland for the Fall Semester.

Her namesake, Katherine, died of breast cancer four years ago. She was only forty-six years old.

That is the backstory of how my eldest living child got her name.

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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. 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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Posted at 10:19 AM in Memories, Mommying, Motherhood, Notes to My Children (and Yours, too, Perhaps), Parenting, Summer Blog Challenge | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

August 16, 2012

Birth Order Confusion: My Mom Always (Never) Said, "Now there's a pretzel to nibble on."

The birth order books confused me when I read them as a young parent. I was the fourth child, the second daughter, I was supposed to be a jokester, charming, immature and more than slightly irresponsible.

I didn’t get it.

I wasn’t like that at all.

What the birth order books didn’t remember to tell me was when you are in a large family that has separate artificial components, your birth order will be dwarfed by your order within your subgroup. Clear as mud, right?

There are six children in my family. The first three were considered the big kids. The second three were the little kids. I was the oldest of the little kids which was a lot more of my identity than being the second daughter. My older sister was then the youngest of the big kids.

It felt topsy turvy at times, but it was as if my sister and I had switched roles: she was like the youngest in the family and I was like the oldest in the family. She was the one who was more of a jokester. She was the one who spoke out raucously.

I would never say anything I thought my upset someone or go against the rules. That might cause attention in my direction and there were few fates worse than that.

Consequently I heard more of My mother’s famous lectures than I had my mother’s lectures directed at me. She had an entire encyclopedia of speeches. There was one that started like this: “Respoooooooonsibility.” She was quite the orator, using different fluctuations in her voice for emphasis.

The one I remember my sister receiving the most was, “Think before you speak.” It was never enough to speak the proverb, Mom had to sing at least a couple verses of her lecture before Sue would be let off the hook and I would be able to come out from under the invisible rock I would climb under as Mom strode into the room, frustrated and tired herself.

I wonder what my children will tell their children when they receive the prompt, “Mom always used to say….”

Now that is a pretzel to nibble on today!

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Posted at 07:40 AM in Blog Dare, Family, Memories, Mommy Blog Dare, Mommying, Motherhood | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 15, 2012

What is the Hardest Part of Parenting? #SummerBlogChallenge

Summer Blog Challenge Prompt August 15. What is the hardest part of parenting?

I could go Pollyanna today and say something like, “Hardest part? Why, parenting is all a cake walk in the park and the kids always adore your every choice and sit at your feet, wondering how they got so blessed to have ME as their Mommy!”

That is only partially true, after all.

The hardest part of parenting for me is the continually need and practice of letting go.

It is ironic, because that is such a huge part of parenting: we raise our children to be confident enough to fly on their own wings, not on ours.

My children, for the most part, do this.

I’m thinking this morning how much I have been looking forward to the first day of school.

This is true for the most part, but it is also very difficult for me to not know how things are faring for my child. I jump at every ring of the phone. I worry my child will need me and I won’t be able to know telepathically.

I think a big part of that worry is knowing more than likely my child will come home that first day excited about the new year and all the promise it brings.

Or in Katherine’s case, it is she will come home in December, so happy to have spent her Fall in Edinburgh.

There are other tough challenges along the way, but watching them leave and being detached from their outcomes… that is the most difficult moment I face as a parent each and every time.

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Posted at 09:02 AM in Creative Home, Julie Jordan Scott, long ago memories, Memories, Mistakes, Mom-Schlep, Mommying, Motherhood, Parenting, Parenting a Child on the Autism Spectrum, Parenting Teens, Summer Blog Challenge, Writing Inspiration, Writing Prompt | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

August 07, 2012

Dreams and Places Left Behind and Rediscovered: Seeing & Writing with Brand New Mesa Verde Colors

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 13^th 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.

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Posted at 01:39 PM in Cortez, Colorado, Couchsurfing, Family, Family Travel, Inspiration, Julie Jordan Scott, Memories, Mesa Verde National Park, Mini-Retreat, Mommying, Motherhood, Naturalist, Parenting, Parenting a Child on the Autism Spectrum, Parenting Teens, Roadtrip, The Great Southwest Roadtrip, Travel, Unplug, Woman Naturalist, Writing, Writing Block, Writing Inspiration | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Paradox: You & I Meet Tuesday, August 7, 2012 for a Mini Writing Retreat

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.

As am I and As are You.

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Posted at 12:00 PM in Art and Spirituality, Art Begets Art, Behind the Scenes, Beyond Language, Blogging, Blogging tips, Celebration, coffee, Collage, Creative Every Day, Dawn, Forgiveness, Friendship, House Finch, Inspiration, Julie Jordan Scott, Memories, Mini-Retreat, Peacefulness, Poet, Poetry, Soul Collage, Spirituality, Summer, Time Management, Writing, Writing Block, Writing Inspiration, Writing Prompt | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

July 27, 2012

Samuel & Mommy: Beyond Language - On Ritual and Safety in Parenting a Child with High Functioning Autism

It’s #FiveMinuteFriday free write time! <—click to tweet this!

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.

Five minutes: Over....

The guidelines for Five Minute Friday -

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:::

Beyond…

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Posted at 10:43 AM in 5 Minute Friday, Activism and the Arts, Advice, Asking and Living the Questions, Autism, Beyond Language, Education, Family, Fear, Forgiveness, High Functioning Autism, Inspiration, Julie Jordan Scott, Memories, Mommying, Motherhood, Parenting, Parenting a Child on the Autism Spectrum, Parenting Teens, Special Education, Special Needs Siblings | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

July 17, 2012

Letters to My Teen: Don't Let it Bother You

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!

Nonetheless, I like what the BlogDare from BloggyMom's prompt created for me. It even prompted a follow up post which you may read here.

Monday July 16, 2012

Don't let it bother you.

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.

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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!

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Posted at 12:58 PM in Befriending Fear, Blog Boost, Blogging, Family, Fear, Forgiveness, Friendship, Julie Jordan Scott, July2012, Kindness, Living the Question, Memories, Mistakes, Mommy Blog Dare, Mommying, Motherhood, Notes to My Children (and Yours, too, Perhaps), oops!, Parenting, Parenting Teens, Summer Blog Challenge, Ultimate Blog Challenge | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 16, 2012

Mission: To Spread Word-Love Throughout The World

Because I constantly talked about Word Love in my original A to Z Challenge posts, I figured I would start the A to Z Roadtrip with a Word-love post. I am so glad I discovered the roadtrip! I have missed all of you!

I have refilled my coffee. I have grabbed an extra oreo. I have taken my butt and seated myself squarely in my chair to be sure I write, write, write without stopping as I share with you straight off the top of my head why my mission, to spread word love throughout the world is so important.

I am also going to offer to you the option of catching word-love fever.

I sat in a café in the unlikely location of Pierpoint Springs last week with a new friend from Austria. She was a couchsurfer and my family and home were the couchsurfees.

I have a compulsion to make each visit from each couchsurfer as memorable as possible. This is why we found ourselves at such a locale: we were on our way to Sequoia National Monument taking a different road than usual. I wanted to visit Miss Julie’s Bar which is back behind this gem of a diner in Pierpoint Springs, right on the edge of Camp Nelson, right on the edge of Sequoia National Monument’s Trail of 100 Giants.

The trail was our (supposed) destination after all.

We nibbled and chatted and I knew Chrissi, like myself, wasn’t one for idle chatter, so I pulled out my phone and started taking notes. Mostly I was transposing the words of a guy seated in the booth behind me. He was a sheriff’s officer, who was calling in a report on not his phone, but the diner’s phone. Once I heard “357 Magnum” I knew I needed to write this down.

No one would believe this was actually happening. It all seems too cliché and too “America has the craziest and most lovable wacky cast of characters imagineable.”

Chrissi asked me when I looked up, “Have you always known you were going to be a writer?” she asked.

I smiled and said, “I wrote before I knew how to write. I would dictate to my mother what I wanted to write, she would write my words on paper and I would then copy my words she had written.”

Before I was literate, I was in love with words.

I understood their power to create. I didn’t yet understand their power to destroy.

That would come later.

These days, though, I not only write, I teach writing to some and inspire the writing of others. Sometimes the “teaching” and “inspiring” are synonymous. I do this because I know lives are changed when we express what is inside us, begging for us to communicate it.

Even if the only reader is ourselves as we write in a journal which we may later burn, the words are given space outside our overfilled head. This is a huge blessing and this is where the word-romance begins.

Two words come together. They meet. They grow into more words, perhaps with a question mark attached.

I promised myself not to stretch these words out beyond my timer’s song. It just went off.

I love words.

I hope you love words OR if your romance is idle or dull or hasn’t begun yet, take a moment to write a sentence. “Writing and words serve me when they……” and just write a sentence. Be aware of how words show their love to you and you show your love to them.

And then spread the word-love, starting now.

I always have been a matchmaker, after all, a romantic seeking a world of surprising relationships.

Word-love to you!

Julie

I am proud to be a part of the Post A-to-Z Challenge Road Trip. Join the fun here.

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Posted at 10:06 AM in A to Z Challenge, A to Z Roadtrip, Advice, Bloggers, Blogging, Couchsurfing, Creativity, Curiosity, Making New Friends, Memories, Passion, Sequoia, Sequoia National Monument, Travel, Wilderness, Word-Love, Writing | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 15, 2012

#SOCSunday is BACK! Summer Memories via Smells and Tastes

I was so pleased to discover SOCSunday lives on! I don’t like what I wrote but it is better than not writing at all. Remember, this is Stream of Consciousness so no editorial grumbling allowed.

Our optional prompt (which I followed) is.....

What does Summer smell or taste like to you? And why?

Your five minutes starts now!

Summer smells like… the mornings smell like optimism. Breezy, with a soft kiss and the reminder that every day is a new beginning.

Summer tastes like mint chip ice cream with chocolate sauce (instead of dinner when the thought of cooking makes your skin sweat… just the thought of it!)

Summer afternoons smell like gym shoes. Pungent. Tired. A bit discouraged.

Summer afternoons smell like my van’s airconditioning, magnolia trees and Samuel at the end of the day, sometimes French fries.

Summer evenings smell like rain, even when its try, perhaps by sure will or delusion or “Must I live through another dry over 100 degree day?”

Summer evenings taste like salty hot pretzels.

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I am glad the SOCSunday lives on. I enjoy knowing we are still out here, writing, without thinking, just writing and bonding and reaching out, even though I think this is my lousiest SOC Sunday post ever. :-(

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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. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post. (get it over in my sidebar)
Link up your post here.
Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

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Posted at 06:52 PM in Blog Hop, Memories, SOC Sunday, Storytelling, Summer | Permalink | Comments (3)

April 20, 2006

Discovery of Fibonacci Poetry Witnessing the Moment with Words - from the 2006 archives

Note from Julie in 2012:

It is always a bit.... awkward to read my words from long ago. In this particular post I think, "What funky formatting. Should I change it? I decided no, except I centered the poetry and added some visuals.

Now, from April, 2006

I think this is the longest I have
ever gone between posts. Wow. Nine
days, practically an eternity for me.

I also notice the sheer perfection
in the topic I have chosen to write
upon today, as well as some of the
content WITHIN this topic... it all
spirals into that perfect symbol, infinity.

I am blessed in so many ways.

I remember in the days before I admitted to being
an artist I was pretty darn lonely. I didn’t think there
was anyone around Bakersfield that was remotely
like me, so instead I buried myself in bad habits,
recluse behavior or its counterpart, pretending
to be someone I wasn’t.

My life is so different now. I am surrounded
by artists every day.

This week has been very poetry rich. I have
felt the call to compose almost everything I
experience. I call this “witnessing the moment
with words.”

I was driving next to the Haberfelde Building
yesterday and I saw a woman standing beside
her mini-van. I held her image in my mind
until later in the day, when I sat in a restaurant
with pen in hand and wrote:

I saw a woman today, a young woman
Whose hairstyle looked like a
Triangular helmet and I remembered
Fourteen years ago when I
Wore triangular helmet hair, too…. hair
That protected me from seeing my
Foolishly cagey choices that
Neglected my psyche….
I wondered if
She hurts
Too

I didn’t realize at the time that the poem
had actually taken on the shape of a triangle.

I sat in the restaurant and my eyes fell upon
another young woman who happened to be
speaking on her cell phone at the time. She
was explaining to someone that she was calling
from Bakersfield right now, and from her
appearance, I guessed she was in outside
sales of some sort, traveling her territory.

I remembered, again, a chapter from my past
before I embraced my artist self. I wrote:

I wonder what she sells?
Maps, cell phone, ledger rested
Upon the J-I-T-B table
“I’m in Bakersfield” she told
The unseen party
Gently highlighted, expensive hair
Hides her face from my
Sideways view I wonder
What she thought when
She bought those shoes?
Her breath is steadily
Shallow as she studies the
Small print report
Her now moved hair shows she is
So young
And I wonder….
I just plain wonder

Last night I went to the poetry group at Russo’s at the
Marketplace. I haven’t been there a lot – I don’t consider
myself a regular – but I am beginning to know some
of the faces, voices and their quirks and personality traits.

We were introduced to a new form of poetry, the
Fibonacci Poem.

Like Haiku, it connects poetry to a numerical form. Some
poets balk at such a structure. Here is my take. As free flowing
and “there are no rules, there are no wrongs” as I am, I
completely relish the joyful, free, clarifying sense of
peace that comes from embracing a poetic form.

It is an example of joyful discipline, free practice,
constricted abundance. Ah, the glee of paradox.

This new form of poetry is based on a formula where the
length of each subsequent line of the poem is based
upon the length of the two preceding lines of the poem.

The first line is O + 1 which equals, 1. Therefore,
the first two lines each have one syllable. The third
line is the addition of the first and second line, so it is
2 syllables. The third line has three, the fourth five, the
fifth, eight and so on. The standard, if there is one, for
now is five lines of twenty syllables.

It is conceivable one could go much further, stretching
single lines out infinitely. Remember, there are no rules,
there are no rights or wrongs in
the Julie-book-of-creativity.

I sat in the midst of my fellow poets and wrote a
few “Fibs” (Fibonacci’s abbreviated name.)

Fib #1
She
Draws
A quick
About face
I won’t surrender!
She cries as she runs away fast…..

Fib #2
“Must
I
Listen?”
She wonders
“I would rather not.”
She curls up and falls fast asleep.

I actually presented those Fibs as a part of the
poetry group last night, being the ultimate teacher’s
pet that I am. Jenn gave us an assignment to write
a Fib as homework. I did it as Circle Work.

This morning during my writing practice,
more Fibs popped.

Fib #4
Have
You
Ever
Felt when shoes
Really hug your feet?
I savor their loving support

Fib #5

You
Say
She is
Teacher’s Pet
Instead I say this:
She loves learning with great passion

Now, a bit more spiritual and deep:

Fib #6

I
Said
“Fill me”
And he did
That sacred moment
Forever felt in memory

This next one is based on multiple conversations I have
had about “Cleansed”, a play that is stirring up
controversy here in Bakersfield. I moved to a longer
form of Fib in order to say all that needed to be said.

Fib #7
Why?
Why?
Do we
Give to it?
Negative forces…….
Our strength may need its brutal pull….
Internal resurrection one soul finds her answer

To think some people insist they don’t “get” or
“like” poetry. I say, let’s keep it alive. Maybe that
means we need to use new forms to bring their
heartbeat into alignment with the joy of poetry,
the simplicity of poetry, the delight of words
breathed onto paper in a form which
is not our norm.