I have no recollection of what happened on this day four years ago.
What I know is this: walking alongside my now nineteen-yea-old daughter Emma through her challenges and victories has been satisfying, even moreso, in retrospect. As a parent, it is so important to remember you are in this with your child in the long run, not just in the moment.
Step back to a moment, five years ago....
Emma - my fifteen-year-old daughter - just called me during her lunch period in tears.
She heard my voice and the tears and way-too-fast-to-understand speech started flowing.
This hasn’t happened in a while and my instinct is still to run to the school, scoop her up, bring her home and let her learn about negotiating socially later.
Instead, when she needed to get off the phone she quickly caught her breath, immediately sounded back to her normal self and hopefully is able to move along without losing any more of her day.
This has the makings of a very long weekend if she isn’t able to move along.
I may have to warm up the, “Sometimes you have to apologize for the misunderstanding instead of apologizing for what they want an apology for that you know you didn’t do” speech. She didn’t hear my “Do you know what it means to be positional?” speech at all.
I don’t even think she recognized how I slid into my “mental health” voice, the tones and cadence I used to use when my clients with severe mental illness were on the edge of escalating.
She is fifteen now and her outbursts have become more rare, but they are still there.
The absolutes gather steam, the hope balloon deflates and she is temporarily tossing about in the sea of teen pain and sorrow deeper than I can recognize right this moment.
None of those standard lines like “Things have a way of working out” or “It will blow over” or “If you just suck it up and apologize it will make your life so much easier” will work right now.
I just have to stay reasonably comfortable until 3:15 when I go fetch her from school and pray that between then and now something – anything – resolves favorably.
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.
Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: and on Periscope for writing prompt, tips and inspiration daily created to ignite your artistic rebirth.
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 through the end of 2016.
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.
If you ask me what my work is, I usually throw in something
about my commitment to playing my part in positive world transformation. This
is why I write, why I create art, the motivation behind engaging people and my life coaching work, why I teach
seminars and facilitate programs. It is the
reason I don’t only have friends who are exactly like me. This world transformation is the most
significant work I can do, along with Mary Oliver’s words in Messenger, “My
work is loving the world.”
Like Thoreau, I want to “live deep and suck the marrow out
of life.”
With all of this forever the undercurrent in mind, I sit
down this morning to write, like I usually do.
I keep forgetting to turn on music and then a bird outside
my window sings, reminding me I don’t need to turn anything on when they are in
the neighborhood.
I also hear the duet of a couple leaf blowers, so I suppose
they are telling me it is time to turn on my musical companion.
During a moment of rest between the notes of Chopin’s “Andante
spianato and grade polonaise brillante op 22” I hear the gardener’s weapons
have been silenced and when I tune my ears carefully, I can hear the birds
alongside my fingers clattering on the keyboard and the music inviting my mind
to dance.
The piano returns, the human at the keys moving quickly, my
bet is she loves the work out of both her hands and her concentration. It
becomes second nature.
Second.
There is space for two voices, together and two voices
singing separate solos.
I notice the piano and the strutting of a car as it drives
past.
I make space for my fingers pressing the keyboard and the
scrape of the bottom of a Buick on Linden Avenue and Alta Vista.
I allow myself to veer off from my straight path to search
for a quote and come up with these words from Karen Joy Fowler that connect to
my heart in a way not unlike Cupid’s bow:
“Owls hoot in B flat,
cuckoos in D, but the water ouzel sings in the voice of the stream. She builds
her nest back of the waterfalls so the water is a lullaby to the little
ones.”
I briefly search YouTube for
“Ousel” since I have never heard of that bird. I discover a misspelling
– it is Ouzel – and a synonym, American Dipper.
I watch an Ouzel building her nest under a bridge. I note
how comfortable she is in this space right above a waterfall. I wonder if I can
watch one of these lovelies in person. I listen to her song, a gentle
counterpoint to the rapids.
Her voice reminds me of a dance teacher helping a very
serious but intensely passionate and playful dancer, the instructor whispering
instruction and the dancer hears and responds to something that would only
sound like a particular form of gibberish to most of us.
I pause for a moment, wondering what the point is of all
this observation I am carefully constructing to share with… someone…
I notice this segment of Chopin sounds like rapids and the
next, sounds like water caught and swirling between large rocks.
I consider, perhaps, the only person I write this for is
myself.
“What?” the practical-write-only-if-there-is-a-point side of
me stutters. “This writing isn’t to awaken the world to what they aren’t
hearing so they too may listen and enjoy the simplest sounds and perhaps create
the next great work of art for everyone ELSE to enjoy in a huge virus of
creativity sparked by cars and leaf blowers and Chopin and American Dippers
fluttering over rocks and water and diving under bridges?”
Maybe it is and maybe it is just so I may be inspired to go
camping in new places or read a book about the romance between George Sand and
Frederic Chopin.
Maybe it is just so I can hear the announcer pronounce
“Janos” so elegantly.
It is not up to me alone.
It is up to me to simply write, to put my writing out there
and then to listen for any responses without attachment to weather another
sound is created.
The grosbeak again woops it up out my window, almost like
she is reassuring me.
I relax my neck muscles and turn my chair so I may fetch my
laundry.
The only investment was thirty minutes while my wash did its
thing and careful attention. The result I received was fierce, unabated
contentment. Now I am ready to continue the work I am meant to do because being here, enjoying this moment fully without concerning myself about all the a's-and-b's-and-c's of world transformation is the path to world transformation after all.
This is my tenth post (of 31!) for the October Ultimate Blog Challenge.
Watch here for challenge posts which will include Writing Prompts, Writing
Tips and General Life Tips and Essays.
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 -
Katherine confessed as I watched her face from six thousand
or so miles away from me, “Yesterday was the first time I was homesick since I
got to Edinburgh!” I couldn’t help but smile and feel a little satisfied.
“I just wanted to go home!” It was our apple picking/pumpkin
collecting combination that got her where her draw to home meet her belly.
Autumn holidays do it for me, too.
Her Nana visited, we were broadcasting on facebook about our
fun and there she was,
looking out the window of her flat at a castle. She was thinking
about going to a high school production of “West Side Story” in Glasgow, just
the thought of which made me chuckle. She was having the luxury of hanging out
with other intellectual religion majors and yet she missed picking apples in
the Tehachapi desert and rummaging through splinter laden pumpkin vines to find
just the right level of perfection in orange and green porch sitting friends?
I suppose it is possible. I suppose I would miss being with
us, too.
I am listening to Celtic music and she is living amongst
Celtic music yet she wanted to be here, sniffing the apple-cinnamon goodness
rising from my crock pot.
I love being a Mommy. I love my babies, wherever and however
and at whatever stage each one finds his or herself.
Tonight it will be back to homework and chores and wrapping
up the day-to-day, but amidst it all the fond memories of yesterday will
continue to hold us close. If we are careful and gentle with those near
memories, they will stay longer.
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 am writing 31 Days/31 Slices of Life with My Children and Me.
I didn’t want to pick Emma up from school tonight. I finally said, “Ok,
Ok, I will get her” when the passive aggressive other person who might take
that duty was being such a pain in my butt it just wasn’t worth it.
Samuel and I drove the ten minutes to East Bakersfield High
School and I started thinking how much I missed Emma, how much I always miss my
kids when we are separated. I don’t usually phone them because it hurts too
much. My eldest daughter lives in Scotland for this Semester – part of her
Junior Year Abroad, and I told her on Skype last Sunday, “Sometimes I pretend
you are still at Smith in Northampton. That is only
3000 miles away, not 3,000
miles of continent and then 3,000 miles of ocean!”
My children know they are loved.
Emma had been at school today from 7 am for zero period PE
to 9 pm doing her Newspaper…. What do they call it? It is the time they put
everything together, “create the pages” etc…. oh yes, LAYOUT.
Last year at this time Emma was a complete neophyte, a goofy
freshman.
This year she is a winner of a statewide journalism contest
and the managing editor of the paper as a sophomore.
She climbed into the car and I asked my usual question: “How
did it go?”
“Surprisingly enough it went really, really well. I am so
much better at this stuff this year.” Naturally this year she is a leader, too.
I didn’t need to remind her of that, she knew it before I
spoke.
She was wearing a new dress and feeling satisfied. I could
almost feel her patting herself on the back, “Job well done, me.”
When she auditioned Saturday for Regional Honor Choir I told
her, “If you don’t make it, don’t feel badly about it. There are more chances
to audition in the future.”
When she got out of auditions she felt good. “I am glad I
auditioned and if I don’t get in, there is always next year and senior year.”
I had prayed for poise and sure enough, she was full of
poise and grace. The accompanist messed up her part of the Italian Arts song
and Emma just kept going, 100% professional.
I might not have had the overwhelming desire to pick her up
tonight, but upon reflection I think of Saturday night when she said, “I’ll go
with you. I like hanging with my Mommy.”
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity
Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since
1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director,
Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the
StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield.
Did
you enjoy this essay? Receive emails directly to your
inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion
Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost)
every week day. Subscribe here now -
In this 31 Days I will write of mothering my tween son, my teen daughter and my on-the-verge of twenty-one daughter. So much Mommying seems to focus on the PreSchool years. I want to share some other sides of Mommying and this 31 Days gives me the perfect opportunity.
It was still dark this morning when I woke up at close to
six o’clock.
I had given Samuel, my son, his usual five minute warning to
get out of bed, but I knew he had been up late so instead of being a command sergeant
playing reveille on her shiny trumpet, I climbed into his bed for a little
morning snuggle.
I won’t be able to do this for much longer. If he didn’t
have autism, I wouldn’t feel the ability to do such a normal-motherly thing. At
eleven, he is much like an eight-year-old emotionally. He got tears in his eyes
when I left the house Saturday to go to a five hour workshop. “I want to be
with you, Mommy, I want to be with you,” he said.
It was quiet moments like those as I watched him sleep this
morning. He usually isn’t one for closeness. When he goes to sleep he wraps
himself in a sheet or blanket cocoon. When I climbed into his full sized bed,
he unwrapped his sheet, let me slide in and went back into that lovely stage of
half-awake, half-asleep early morning brings.
He put his calf against my knee.
This is enormous affection from this little boy on the
spectrum. I stared at his long eye-lashes, his few sweet, still little boy like
freckles and his face, so like my father, his grandfather.
It was such a serene moment.
Last night I almost tweeted something like this: “It is one
of those rare nights where it feels like autism is winning. I am so aggravated!”
This morning, I said quietly, “Samuel, it’s time to get up.”
And he responded, equally calm and quietly “Ok.”
He stretched his ever getting longer legs before climbing
from the bed and the day began.
Moments like these are what keep me going when he is ornery
and angry and refuses to eat his French fries because I forgot to put the
chicken nuggets in at the right time. Even though he eats the fries first
anyway, his rule and ritual says he must have chicken and fries in front of him
before a single bite is taken or a single drop is sipped.
It would drive some people crazy.
It drives me deeper in love.
It was still dark this morning when I woke up at close to
six o’clock.
I had given Samuel, my son, his usual five minute warning to
get out of bed, but I knew he had been up late so instead of being a command sergeant
playing reveille on her shiny trumpet, I climbed into his bed for a little
morning snuggle.
I won’t be able to do this for much longer. If he didn’t
have autism, I wouldn’t feel the ability to do such a normal-motherly thing. At
eleven, he is much like an eight-year-old emotionally. He got tears in his eyes
when I left the house Saturday to go to a five hour workshop. “I want to be
with you, Mommy, I want to be with you,” he said.
It was quiet moments like those as I watched him sleep this
morning. He usually isn’t one for closeness. When he goes to sleep he wraps
himself in a sheet or blanket cocoon. When I climbed into his full sized bed,
he unwrapped his sheet, let me slide in and went back into that lovely stage of
half-awake, half-asleep early morning brings.
He put his calf against my knee.
This is enormous affection from this little boy on the
spectrum. I stared at his long eye-lashes, his few sweet, still little boy like
freckles and his face, so like my father, his grandfather.
It was such a serene moment.
Last night I almost tweeted something like this: “It is one
of those rare nights where it feels like autism is winning. I am so aggravated!”
This morning, I said quietly, “Samuel, it’s time to get up.”
And he responded, equally calm and quietly “Ok.”
He stretched his ever getting longer legs before climbing
from the bed and the day began.
Moments like these are what keep me going when he is ornery
and angry and refuses
eat his French fries because I forgot to put the
chicken nuggets in at the right time. Even though he eats the fries first
anyway, his rule and ritual says he must have chicken and fries in front of him
before a single bite is taken or a single drop is sipped.
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity
Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since
1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director,
Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the
StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield.
Did
you enjoy this essay? Receive emails directly to your
inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion
Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost)
every week day. Subscribe here now -
I sort of miswrote to the ABC Challenge prompt. I focused on what I wanted to remember from where I was and for whatever reason, I dipped into a memory from childhood that wouldn't let go. So it isn't September 11 or John Lennon's death or the start of Desert Storm.
It was when a stormy period of my life happened, long before I had a grip on my place here in life.
I remember when I was dumped by my friends when I was in the
seventh grade. For unknown reasons to me, the majority of my closest friends
started to shun me. They didn’t walk to school with me, they ignored me, they
acted as if I was a social pariah.
This happened once before, when we started fifth grade and
middle school, all my best friends from fourth grade dumped me.
Both times I had no idea what I did wrong, so I figured the
dumping was core deep: something was inherently wrong and unlikeable about me.
How many of us go through this at some time or another?
How many times does this happen, when we seem to vaporize
from the memory of those we once believed were our closest friends?
The years between fifth and eighth grade were by far the
most difficult for me. There was a time in eighth grade when I hid in my closet
for four days straight in order to miss school. My parents didn’t know I wasn’t
going to school until the attendance office called to check on me.
I got a talking to and I remember Mom visited the school
psychologist. She was scared for me.
Nothing changed, though. I was being bullied by cooler kids,
I was being bugged about my appearance. I was compared to my thinner, prettier
sister and scoffed at, “Why aren’t you more like her?”
I remember when my daughter Katherine was dumped in fourth
grade as well. I was horrified for her and grateful when in fifth grade she was
suddenly, inexplicably popular again. Emma had so many problems socially it
made her sick to attend school. I talked to the principle about her anxiety, to
see if the school culture could be, somehow, improved.
She gave me nothing except, “Take her to the shrink”. She
does go to group therapy now and loves it and she is in high school now and whenever
I visit her, kids are all over here with greetings. “Hi Emma!” or “EMMA!” or “Hey,
Emma….” Or whatever expression they might have.
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity
Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since
1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director,
Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the
StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield.
Did
you enjoy this essay? Receive emails directly to your
inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion
Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost)
every week day. Subscribe here now -
School is back in session so who knows where you might find
me now!
I know, I know – these are silly photos and true photos as
well. Granted, I more than likely will not be riding any motorcycles in the
near future, but I will be feeling the delight of freedom, the joy of
connecting along my journey that I sometimes miss when I have my perpetual
entourage of kidlets with me.
Please don’t get me wrong: I adore each and all of my three
children AND when the time comes for them to return to school and me to return
to my life work, we are all content in a different way than when we are
together.
I will be continuing to offer teleclasses, e-courses and in
October I plan another “Big, Bad-Ass” program in the tradition of my wildly successful
42 Days of Passionate Prosperity and 42 Days of Writing with Passion from the
old days at 5passions.com.
Are you ready to stretch your wings and soar beyond where you've been until now?
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity
Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since
1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director,
Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the
StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield.
Did
you enjoy this essay? Receive emails directly to your
inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion
Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost)
every week day. Subscribe here now -
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.
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 -
First, take a nice deep breath. Feel where your muscles are tense and relax…. Again… deep breath and relax…. Deep breath and relax….
I remember when I was a new parent all I wanted to do was be the absolute best parent that ever was for my daughter. I did everything right: breast feeding only, cloth diapers only, spending days cuddling on the sofa just idly watching television never putting her down and of course please don’t forget attachment parenting times a bajillion.
What I have learned in the twenty years since then is your baby will love you whether you are the perfect super parent or just a parent trying to do his or her best in the moment.
I found a better strategy is to do what is best for that particular baby in that precise moment.
This morning I read about gold mining in the 1850’s. Yes, I know – not your usual reading and yes, it is relevant. Just listen – it is a brief analogy. It was a letter from a woman known as Dame Shirley who lived and wrote glorious letters home to her sister in New England. My favorite was a letter she wrote about when women joined men in mining.
The men loved to have the women around, so they would encourage them by passing the women plates that were pre-filled with gold dust to encourage women to continue mining. It wasn’t easy work and most women approached mining as if going on an afternoon picnic, especially when the gentleman miners proved to them how simple this work was!
Truth is, the work was hard and rarely was it very fruitful for the average miner, male or female.
They spent hours sifting the “ordinary dirt” from the gold dust.
This is what I think will help you most in parenting after discerning what is best for each child in each particular moment. Take the advice you receive and sift through it. There will be gold dust for you in other people’s words, but it is best if you find it yourself.
It is best if people don’t give you so much that the muddy water makes it impossible for you to sift out the advice that is right for your little ones.
Let’s go back to the beginning:
Take a nice deep breath. Feel where your muscles are tense and relax…. Again… deep breath and relax…. Deep breath and relax….now love your baby with all your heart every day.
Forgive yourself when you fall short of what you think is “The Super Mom” or “The Perfect Dad.” Just being you and doing the best you absolutely can is what will fill up your children’s love sippy cup now and for the rest of their lives… and for your Grandchildren, too. Imagine 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.
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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 -
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