Julie Unplugged

I Wish Someone Had Been Bold Enough to Tell Me: One #autism story

It tugs on my heart. Something so ordinary to most is to me so much more than an expectation. Flashbacks flit past my mind’s eye, tickle my heart memory. My eyes flood.

Tomorrow Samuel will become a sophomore in high school.

My baby will no longer be in the group of the youngest kids on campus. He has morphed into a certain expertise in many things about North High School. He feels welcomed there, he has developed friendships, has goals and desires and has managed to weave his way through wobbly moments without me by his side with a cold compress for his forehead or an evil eye to lob at kids or adults who dare be in the least bit unkind to him.

Samuel is on the autistic spectrum. He has autism. He has been labeled in a variety of ways – Asperger’s, High Functioning Autism and has the occasional ADHD thrown in. I see him as Samuel, the other titles don’t enter into my psyche as much as “make sure he gets an education that suits him and provides him the experiences and knowledge he needs to reach his goals.”

Last year at eighth grade graduation, he was among the first to get his diploma. He was with the group of kids with autism, even though he had achieved high rankings in the “non-autism” world at school.

This year he advocated to no longer attend a class with only spectrum kids. He bucked the system and did so effectively. His Spanish teacher called to tell me he wished his class was “filled with kids like Samuel.”

I was so stunned I didn’t have time to get emotional.

He invited friends to his birthday party. He actually called other kids “friends”. They were a huddled group of nerds, boys I probably would’ve liked when I was in high school: awkward, charming, slightly nervous.

Next year he is adding sports to his list of “to-do’s” without my encouragement. He has made choices on his own and actually got recruited to do other sports.

I wish someone had been bold enough to tell me this day was possible, that it wouldn’t always feel like one trudge uphill both ways in the snow, I wish someone would have been bold enough to tell me it wouldn’t be one compromise after defeat after compromise after defeat after compromise.

I wish someone had been bold enough to tell me the tears would someday be from joy back in when I cried for 168 days straight.

I wish someone had been bold enough to tell me.

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter:   and on Periscope for writing prompt, tips and inspiration daily created to ignite your artistic rebirth.

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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 early Summer and beyond.

  To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735

  Check out the links above to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

 

 

How to Recognize Yourself as the Mommy-Artist of Life You Truly Are Now

What keeps you from being the lead artist of your life?

One of the most common reasons I have heard Moms give about why they don't pursue creativity is because of a lack of time. I get it, one thousand percent.

On the other hand, I don't get it, one thousand percent.

Moms across the ages have been creative people and artists. We are artists of the home, of the written word, of the paint brush, of the sewing machine and loom.

Today, I want to focus on recognizing what is creative and naming it as such.
We forget sewing our daughter's costume for a school play is art or we forget putting together a casserole with whatever happens to be in the cupboard is an art or even that journaling or letter writing or blogging is an art but I want to remind you that yes, each and all of these is another way you express yourself creatively.

I would venture to say pinterest board organizing is an art.

Writing Top 10 lists for your blog is an art.

Organizing your desk drawers at your day job is an art.

Negotiating with your co-workers is an art.

Asking questions of others in a way that is both strong and gentle is an art. I would extend that to say it is an extraordinary art.

 

This small park is filled with poetry and vision - fueled by the rhythm of the once active mills that filled the city of Lowell.

One of my favorite women writers of the last century was Lucy Larcom, a writer you probably haven't heard of in the past. She was a worker in the Lowell Mills in Massachusetts, back when young women first entered the workforce in a big way.
She was a child when she started working the loud, heavy machines that wove fabric to make clothes for the masses and in order to keep herself content, she and her sister posted poetry in their work spaces and recited to one another.

 

From this practice of enjoying and experiencing poetry while working longer and harder days than many of us can imagine, she also learned how to be a writer. Her poetry lasts until today and last April I visited the Lucy Larcom park which runs the width of a city block in Lowell, Massachusetts, including a stretch of green alongside the high school another local attended, the better known in some circles Jack Kerouac.

In those days they didn't even have running water in the boarding house Lucy's Mom managed for a number of other Mill Girls. There wasn't room for complaints about the lack of time to be creative.

She chose to be creative just as you and I may choose to be creative with the snippets of time we have "leftover" and yes, right in the midst of being a Mommy or an Accountant or a Lawyer or a Busdriver or a Dogwalker or a Pastor of the local church, YOU can choose to be creative.

All it takes is a shifting your mind into a place of belief and shifting your perspective into a more intensely creative one.

You are the chief artist of your life. You, your life and your world are worth it.

Bloggers, Writers and Other Creative Folks: Why not participate in Let Your Words Flow? We offer new prompts to spice up your blogging, writing and creative thinking every day!

 

 Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her word-love themed art will be for sale at a First Friday soon, when it is warmer than it was in December!, in Downtown Bakersfield. Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

 Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot     

  Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

  Follow on Instagram

  And naturally, on Pinterest, too!

   © 2014 - Julie Jordan Scott - all rights reserved.

Related articles

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How to Build a Stronger Relationship with Your Daughters: Experience Mother-Daughter Adventures

 

What adventures have you taken with your daughter lately? In the left hand corner photo, my youngest daughter and I visit Hollywood with several of her friends, for example.

It was a rite of passage which never happened for me.

I waited to have an awful relationship with one of my daughters. I thought it was inevitable as transitioning from diapers to big girl panties, but to this day it is still a personal unknown for me.

 

My youngest daughter is going on seventeen and so far, all is well. My daughters' friends even like me.

There are three things I attribute this to:

1. Very open lines of communication. This leads to trust which takes away fear of speaking up, a challenge many adults I know possess.

2. Willingness to host and entertain teens, even when they are much louder than I would like.

3. Regular "Mother-Daughter Days."

Yesterday my twenty-two year old daughter and I took a "chore" of going to Los Angeles Airport into a Mommy-Daughter adventure. We visited some architectural salvage sights, at one point stepped into a laundromat-subway-starbucks-moneygram very loud place that made us feel like we had stepped into the third world.

We bought old keys to nothing we own and doorknobs from the early 20th century that no longer have doors - or homes - attached to them.

We werein our car, heading to lunch when everything felt very familiar.

It isn't that things looked familiar or there were landmarks I recognized, it was simply something that changed in me, like the way hunger or thirst feels.

I decided to look up the address to my father's childhood home on my GPS. Sure enough, we had passed  my father's old neighborhood in Pasadena.  There was no doubt about it: we had to visit the home where my Dad and Katherine's Grandpa  grew up. First  we ventured to lunch at another familiar place - a restaurant I used to nosh in when I was a young married professional. We laughed that it had been twenty-five years between visits.

We eventually made it to the airport and before long I was texting her from one of my favorite thrift shops, Out of the Closet, to see if she wanted a particular Banana Republic cardigan.

She did.

She flew off to Seattle and I continued my zany day which included sunset on the Santa Monica Pier, an opening of an art show in the Culver City Arts District and an open mic event in Encino. By the time I got on the road back to Bakersfield I was thoroughly exhausted and satisfied.

This morning my youngest daughter lamented she didn't get to participate.

My daughters actually want to do things with me.

Isn't that what all mothers  hope for with their daughters?

Go back to the very simple steps:

1. Create open lines of communication

2. Be willing to host (even when it gets loud.)

3.  Schedule REGULAR Mother-Daughter days.

My daughters and I have disagreements. My daughters and I regularly annoy each other. AND these three simple actions have taken our relationships deeper, wider and just a lot more fun.

What adventures have you had with your daughter lately?

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Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her word-love themed art will be for sale at a First Friday soon, when it is warmer than it was in December!, in Downtown Bakersfield. Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

 Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot     

   Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

   Follow on Instagram

   And naturally, on Pinterest, too!

   © 2014 - Julie Jordan Scott - all rights reserved.

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The Greatest Gift You Can Give Your Children: Create a Space for Laughter

The holiday season tends to ignite the crazed shopper in parents. We all want to give our children the exact gifts their hearts desire. December 26 often arrives with kids being either over or underwhelmed and parents wondering where all the joy went from spending all that money while doing all that frenetic shopping.

I spent a weekend with my children that contained the best gift to all of us: the sounds of our laughter, rising up and tumbling down. Shouts of silliness and camaraderie and the creation of stories we will all continue to share that start with "remember the time when we....."

My friend Cameron said to me the other day how much he enjoys watching my Godson play and discover life just by being a thoroughly engaged child. My son, who is seven years older, has learned via experience how to be an unconditionally loving older-brother-figure.

Watching the two of them play and laugh together has been an incredible gift to me - as one who dearly loves them both - and Cameron reminded me how these are the memories both boys will savor when they get older.

It isn't about the expensive trips to amusement parks. It isn't the latest gadget or the educational wizardry toy of the month.

It is about creating a space for laughter to burst through - as created by your child herself, not the game or the place or the parental supervision and finger pointing. It is stepping back and holding the space open for spontaneous creativity.

My children and I put together a puzzle yesterday while visiting Bugseum, a museum about bugs from the local business, InsectLore. The puzzle was for children from ages four to twelve and the three of us - between ages 12, 16 and much much older struggled. Together we found the ridiculousness of the moment and turned what could have been frustration, a festival of self denigration or desertion of the goal into a giddy love fest of laughter.

When we were done, we invited a staff member to take a photo.

We hammed it up and watched as our laughter spread to our now photographer.

Laughter is contagious. It is great physical exercise. It is free. Laughter is a great building block toward a more remarkable life.

It is a gift you can so easily give your children by releasing your reigns and simply creating space for them to discover how to manufacture their own fun rather than pulling it out of a box or a place.

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  Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her word-love themed art will be for sale at First Friday each month in Downtown Bakersfield. Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

 

 

 

  Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot     

 

   Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

  Follow on Instagram

   And naturally, on Pinterest, too!

    © 2013 - Julie Jordan Scott - all rights reserved.

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Inspiration for Your Blogging, Writing & Creativity - Quote from Berthe Morisot, Writing Prompts & More

Please enjoy this example of Berthe Morisot's work.

Each day, a quote, an image, several questions and a writing prompt are offered to you to use for  Your Blogging, Writing & Creative Inspiration in order to increase your creative thinking as well as your personal and soulful  development.  

 

"It is important to express oneself provided the feelings are real."

 

Berthe Morisot

Woman Painter & Major Figure in the Impressionist Group

Questions:

How often do you express yourself creatively?

What aspects of your creative process has not been explored yet? What’s stopping you.

Bonus: Take an action on the second question. Write about what happened.

 

Lists:

After you make your list, refer back to it for writing prompts that are personalized and will inspire you on an individual basis

Make a list of the five to ten creative projects which fill you with the most pride. If you have fewer than five, write the ones you have and add "intention: future project."

Make a list of five to ten ways you create daily: teach, cook, parent, manage, take photos with your camera, sing, tell stories to your friends.

Life Coaching/Personal Growth Lessons to Create

1. Consider how creative thinking - such as problem solving - is a significant part of the creative process.

2. What will you do to encourage yourself and the people you coach to be more creative in their everyday lives?

Traditional Writing Prompt:

1. I express myself mostly….

2. I would like to express myself more…….

 

© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott  

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This Blog Series was created to increase your creative thinking process as well as inspire writing and ideas to take form that may not have taken form without these specific quotes, questions and prompts. If you find them helpful, I hope you will pass them along to friends as well.

I’m so glad you are here, reading and creating.

Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot

 Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

 Follow on Instagram 

And naturally, on Pinterest, too!

 Welcome to my thirtieth post (of 31!) for the October Ultimate Blog Challenge. Watch here for Your Writing & Creative Inspiration! Word-Love to YOU!

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Sunrise through Lace: Another Perfect Day

Yesterday was a nearly perfect day.

I didn’t go anywhere beyond a small patch of Bakersfield. I didn’t have an enormous a-ha that will make me a multi-millionaire. I did, however create nearly every waking hour and when I wasn’t actively in creativity mode, I was spending time with my children.

Samuel went thrifting with me yesterday. He actually walked around the store and even – unbelievably – chose something to buy. Very specifically, mind you, he wanted something Christmas-y and because he is who he is, he wanted something very practical: coffee (or for him water or chocolate milk) mugs.

He carried things when my hands were full and when we discovered one of the few shopping carts, he pushed it.

I worked on creating more ladder shelves and destroyed and recreated an old, warped dresser which will now become several different works though I am not sure exactly what they will be. I painted a stool, I painted a goose box thing my friend bought me two summers ago at a thrift store because it was half price. I painted a piece I think was part of a Sunday School – because I can’t quite place where I have seen one like it and it has birds cut out of the wood on the sides. It is a sort of shelf thing. I could also see it as a “point of entry/exit” for young children. Like a small version of yesterday’s mudroom where shoes and jackets and backpacks may be stored.

We had disappointments. Emma and I had hoped to see a play but it was sold out.

Our friend Jennie joined us for our weekend jaunt to the mall not to shop but for Samuel to collect street pass tags. If you have a child with a handheld Nintendo device, you may know what that is. Maybe.

I even painted in my outdoor studio when it was dark. I was a woman possessed. When the frenzy ended, Emma and I sat and watched Project Runway while poking around facebook. Well, I poked around facebook, before the three “girls” of the house fell asleep on Emma’s bed. Alice the cat had to be a part of the party, naturally.

This morning, though, I didn’t want to begin because in the middle of my day I have a commitment that will cost me a chunk of four hours which after yesterday feels like an enormous vacuum.

I sat at my kitchen table with one of the old pieces of dresser and sketched out a plan for it. I felt listless. I probably felt a little bit sorry for myself. I walked into my living room and through the lace curtains I saw it.

Sunrise. She was a round, glowing circle of fire framed by my neighbor’s trees.

As I write this, the church bells a couple blocks away sound.

I grabbed my phone and ran outside, unbrushed hair and pajamas on, and took a few photos.

When I came back in, the curtains called me back to take more.

It felt like both a gift and a promise.

Perfect days show up in different ways. Today’s perfection looks different than yesterdays. That’s how it works. That’s how it is supposed to work.

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Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her word-love themed art will be for sale at First Friday each month in Downtown Bakersfield. Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    

  Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

Follow on Instagram

And naturally, on Pinterest, too!

 

© 2013

An Inspirational Story of Autism: Samuel Waits -

Samuel's bus riding ritual has always included standing on the water meter in front of our house.

Samuel is my youngest child and the first since Beyunca, my eldest, to go to a brick-and-mortar school for  7^th grade.

 

I let fear rule me with my middle daughters. I didn’t feel it was safe to send them to our neighborhood middle school so I kept them here, with me, homeschooling. They both did well and started back in public school in high school, ready to go without what seems to be the requisite junior high angst.

The last few days I have seen a huge shift in Samuel and it isn’t angst at all, it is wonder.

Samuel has high functioning autism. He appears and acts, primarily, like any other twelve-year-old boy.

Then something happens that makes people say, “Hmmmm?”

Like when he accompanied me to an appointment with my surgeon yesterday.

The nurse asked me for the date of my last menstrual cycle. Samuel said, “I know what that means. That means when blood and tissue flow from the (and then he used the proper scientific name for that part of the female anatomy.)” Given that he and I had never discussed this at length, this openness surprised me. The nurse sat in her seat, listening. I continued. “Yes, and when I was pregnant with you, I didn’t have a menstrual period.” To which he responded, “That’s why the menstrual period comes, when there isn’t a pregnancy, the blood and tissue isn’t needed.”

In the past, Samuel would have sat in the waiting room with his 3DS XL.

Yesterday, he was right in there – chatting with the nurse and with my surgeon when he arrived.

His curiosity flowed. He made some friends. It was odd and it was fine that it was odd.

He has never been much of a storyteller, though he comes from a family of storytellers.

Yesterday he came home excitedly to tell about an incident on the bus ride.

In the past years, I have driven him because of some bullying problems he had in fourth grade.

This year his school is farther away and I have to take Emma to her school because of her interdistrict transfer.

He wasn’t very happy about taking the bus at first but now, it is enjoyable for him. Plus he gets to experience some interesting stories on the daily journey. Apparently his bus encountered a person who was probably on his own, unique journey and felt like throwing things at his bus.

First he told me the story, then when I called a dear friend on my “when you are in the car everyone is a part of the conversation” cell phone, Samuel told the story again. When we picked up Emma from her rehearsal for The Importance of Being Earnest  he gave another full accounting to his sister.

She said this morning, “Samuel has been so fun lately!”

Something great is happening at middle school for him.

He is achieving, he is growing and yes, he is starting to make more friends.

For the first time in years, I am not afraid during school hours when my phone rings.

This is an enormous shift and a delightful development for me as well as for Samuel.

The word “gratitude” is huge and it doesn’t even begin to hold what I feel.

Exponential gratitude, perhaps.

Today on my to-do list I have a “call the transportation department” to get their version of the incident and then perhaps, if appropriate, call the news. Samuel has had a goal of being on the television news. Sounds like a human interest story. What does the school district do to make Middle School so much better for students with autism that an event that would once be incredibly scary in the past  is now a learning opportunity?

Something is happening that is right this year for Samuel’s educational experience.

I feel enormously blessed.

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Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her word-love themed art will be for sale at First Friday each month in Downtown Bakersfield. Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    

  Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

Follow on Instagram

And naturally, on Pinterest, too!

 

© 2013

 

#31Days of Living a Passionate Life, Day 2/31 - Choosing a Passionate Attitude

 

In October 2013, I am hosting an exploration of liiving a passionate life. On Day 2, we look at choosing your attitude via a conversation with my daughter and mother.

My sixteen-year-old daughter, Emma, was frustrated with me last night. My car has a phone which makes everyone a member of the conversation. My Mom called and I said, “Mom, great news! I don’t have melanoma again!” to which she responded, “Oh, Julie, that’s great!”

 

Considering I hadn’t even told her I had a biopsy last week I found this more than slightly surprising.

“Yes, it is great even though I don’t have melanoma again, I do have basal cell happier to have basal cell than melanoma!”

happier to have basal cell than melanoma!”

 

We went on to talk about how we were celebrating and on and on and it turns out Emma was seething in the back seat. This morning she told me with an angry face,

It is easier to choose a passionate attitude when life is going exactly as planned. Last Spring with Emma and Katherine (Emma on the right).

“I was so mad at you guys. You have cancer – you shouldn’t celebrate, this is going to be awful again.”

 

She even said the color of the ribbon for melanoma was black and that wasn’t even a fun color to wear, to which I quipped, “Basal Cell Carcinoma is so harmless, they don’t even have a ribbon.”

Suddenly, Emma didn’t mind our celebrating and she understood why we were jumping up and down with glee over the news.

This is how it is a lot when we “lose” our passion.

It isn’t that your passion has disappeared or is no longer functional, it is that you have chosen to look at life as if your passion doesn’t exist.

What if you shifted gears and looked through life’s veil differently.

A year ago I wouldn’t have understood about the different variety of skin cancers.

Now that I have lived the journey of melanoma survivor, I am able to make light of it not because it isn’t serious, it is because I am choosing to look through life with a different attitude. I’m a melanoma thriver, not survivor. My heart hurts for those who have had melanoma and weren’t so blessed.

I hear it regularly, after all, because when you have something like cancer, everyone tells you their worst case scenario stories.

These folks don’t mean to be  passion killers and it is up to us, people who are devoted to leading a passionate life to be passionate even and especially when it doesn’t make sense to the rest of the world.

+ + + + +

I was so excited to find this challenge, #31Days hosted by The Nester. You still have a couple days to join. I'm doing the "Personal Endeavor" category with a whole bunch of other cool people.

Consider spending a part of your October with us!

 

 

 

Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her word-love themed art will be for sale at First Friday each month in Downtown Bakersfield. Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    

  Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!) 

Follow on Instagram 

And naturally, on Pinterest, too! 

© 2013

 

 

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Growing with Children: The Joy of Loving Birds

This is Samuel, age 5, celebrating the coots at Hart Park

Late this afternoon I saw them swirling above the tallest evergreens in our neighborhood. “Look at those birds!” Samuel said, delighted. I could not remember their name. I used my still clogged nose as an excuse for not recalling quickly. I was thinking something fowl – like something hen… but eagle like? No, not that.

 

“Turkey vultures!” I cried out, hearing the door slam behind Samuel. I'm not sure he heard me.

I am not sure when my love of birds, specific birds, started.

I know it was less than seven years ago when I was still content to only hear the birds, not knowing whose song was whose and I would proclaim, “These birds don’t show themselves to me. I don’t need to know their names.”

Maybe it was when Samuel was home in first grade, after a tumultuous kindergarten and a school district that failed him in the beginning of first grade. We would spend hours at Hart Park hiking, looking, talking and growing. We bumped into a birder there one day. He was pleased to see us in a lovely, hidden grove by the bridge, a place Samuel called “God’s Garden” because it truly was divine, not because anyone else had proclaimed it so.

The boys took turns filling the bird feeder

This week I showed my Godson how to attract birds to the house: it was food, just like with any other species. We got bird seed, he stirred it up – and important part of the job – and he carefully filled my cheapo bird feeder and Samuel carefully hung it on our pine tree in a spot that has a perfect view from our kitchen table. This is, after all, the most likely place I am to sit, drink coffee, write and watch birds, noting with glee the sparrow or finch or, after Ciaran came, a nuthatch happened by. More specifically, it was a black eared nuthatch, I proudly told him when he came over the next time.

 

For whatever reason, Birds are the first lesson we are sharing. I have yet to pull out my vintage Peterson’s Field Guide to Western Birds and show it to Ciaran. Instead, I am allowing him to be wooed by the birds themselves. When we go for walks and I hear a bird I say something like, “I wonder what sort of bird sings that song?”

His head will lift and his eyes look to the sky, watching intently for the bird who matches the song. He looks for the bird, but like I used to be, is content for just the sounds. I smile, glad to have heard and shared the hearing.

He was being a "Muscovy Duck" whisperer. So fun!

This week we went to feed the ducks at Hart Park, a time honored tradition for my children. In the beginning we had all sorts of crazy names for the ducks. We used to call the Coots “Dumb Country Ducks” because they showed up in droves in the winter and seemed to dance atop the water doing country dances while the mallards sort of rolled their eyes, quacking the way a duck should quack since that is the sound a mallard makes, not the sound a wood duck makes or a coot makes or any of the many other ducks I have watched and admired sound.

 

I used to call the Muscovy Ducks “Turkey Ducks” because they look like, you guessed it, turkeys. They will also follow humans around on the grass, not only sticking to the water.

How many different breeds of ducks do you see here?

There were two kinds of geese at the park that day, the usual pure white ones as well as some lovely, grazing Canadian Geese. This excited me to no end because the Canadians looked so graceful and elegant to me. It also gave me a chance to talk about bird travels.

 

I know my father must have taught me something about birds when I was a little girl, but I don’t remember any of it.

I do know my children will remember it.

I loved how Emma explained the mallards to Ciaran and included, “Mallards are the ones that actually quack,” before ruining my fantasy about mallards mating for life later when our little friend wasn’t with us and was safely out of earshot.

I have been thinking since that afternoon why I feel empowered by knowing which duck and which bird is which.  Perhaps it is because I know the strength of specific via general word choices. Maybe it is because I simply like knowing which bird that looks like this sounds like that. Truly, it may be that I love recognizing the call and the face of traveling birds who move in and around this area at this time of year.

Whatever my inner, unknown motivation may be, I know our moments with the birds and the ducks and including their care, witness and presence in our lives manages to simply grow the sweetness of our life experience. That's worthy enough.

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Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her word-love themed art will be for sale at First Friday each month in Downtown Bakersfield. Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    

  Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

Follow on Instagram

And naturally, on Pinterest, too!

© 2013

She's All Grown Up & is now Her Own Miracle, Personified

She does come home from time-to-time. Here she is two weeks ago in Hollywood - she made the adorable skirt she is wearing.

Miracles do happen.

I know they do by the times my children have listened to me and taken my advice, even when it is advice I sort of wish I hadn’t given.

It must have been close to six years ago if not more I told my then high-school-aged daughter, Katherine, that if I had it to do over again, I would carefully consider attending an all women’s college. “Women’s colleges create phenomenal women leaders,” I told her. I had to take the extra step and say, “And if I could go to any women’s college, I would want to go to Smith College.” After all, it is Gloria Steinem and Julia Child’s alma mater, not to mention Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s, Sylvia Plath’s and many other notable women.

She listened and is now in her senior year at Smith College, three thousand miles away from me on most days of the year.

Once I got to watch her perform via Live Streaming (and yes, I took still photos).

This year I gave her the advice to be sure to document her final year at Smith because I wish I had documented my final year at college – and actually all of my twenties – more carefully. I was calling to mind the wisdom of Literary Granny Vita Sackville-West when she wrote “It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?” If Vita were alive now, she would be taking photos and posting her status on twitter and facebook and more than likely blogging and vlogging.

Yesterday Katherine posted on facebook, lamenting the extravagant number of photos she had taken at her final convocation in Northampton. I commented, “Bless your heart,” so she’ll know her proud Mom is once again stalking her facebook page.

Every day I marvel at the young woman she is continuing to become.

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Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her word-love themed art will be for sale at First Friday on September 6 in Downtown Bakersfield. Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different mixed media channels, especially if you are happy to know Mommy Bloggers live on when their children move away from home. :~)

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    

  Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

Follow on Instagram

And naturally, on Pinterest, too!

© 2013