When I was pregnant with my first baby, Marlena, I did all
sorts of off things that to me shouted COURAGEOUS!
I wanted to give my child the gift of bravery, so I outdid
myself in the “non self consciousness” zone. It was actually an excellent time
of self growth and discovery.
I was in Scottsdale, Arizona at a sales meeting and I
decided, when at a very Old Style Arizona restaurant, that I would try
rattlesnake.
Its taste left no recollection at all for me. Some of you
might find the fact that I like the taste of pickled cow tongue even more and
eat it fairly regularly.
As for my daughter, she was very brave.
She faced death at birth, which turned out to me to be much
scarier than eating
weird food or doing odd things. Even now, twenty-two years
later, I am sad over her death: being able to tell stories like this which
include her, believe it or not, still help.
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity
Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since
1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director,
Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the
StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield.
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you enjoy this essay? Receive emails directly to your
inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion
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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.
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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.
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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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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This turned into a bit of a rant. I apologize ahead of time, but you should be able to tell I am passionate about education AND I am passionate about ALL children.
You might say I am an expert in educational options for my children.
I have done it all: private school, public school, special education in public school, mainstreaming a special needs child in public school and yes, I have homeschooled all three children at some point or another.
There are pros and cons in all of these options.
I would not want to home school my children all the way through simply because I am a much happier Mama when I am not with my children 24/7. There, I admitted it. My children continue to be self taught at home, anyway, and I take them on all sorts of educational outings, it just isn’t “official”. Samuel learns so much by being curious and researching it is incredible.
Katherine, my eldest, went to private Christian school for kindergarten through second grade. I wouldn’t have elected to change this but our income went down, drastically, and I couldn’t afford it. We live in a school district that is very poor – even though we live in a nice neighborhood – and I swore I didn’t want my children in that district.
Now I work on several high profile committees in that same district I thought shouldn’t include my children.
My EuroAmerican children have been the minority for most of their schooling and I am glad it is that way. They appreciate diversity and value people of every ethnicity, culture and belief. They know discrimination because they have felt it, being in the minority.
All three children spent time at a particular Performing Arts Magnet School during elementary school. I was thrilled with Katherine there, slightly less thrilled for Emma and when Samuel was in kindergarten they broke education code… because they had administrators who were clueless and somehow have kindergarten teachers who don’t recognize the symptoms of autism.
I ended up withdrawing Samuel for a semester and homeschooling him until we got the IEP process complete for him and got him the Free, Appropriate, Public Education he was supposed to receive all this time and didn’t.
He was in a fulltime special ed placement for the first semester and then we started mainstreaming which has mostly been successful. He starts sixth grade in a week and it frightens me. Hormones and testiness… with special needs added, I am not sure how this will go.
He also attends an after school social program which has been excellent for him. I just wish hope pray he can generalize those social skills in “the outside of autism world.”
East Bakersfield was the high school for both girls. Emma is going to be a sophomore. Katherine is a Junior at prestigious (back to private) Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, after graduating fifth in her class. She is spending the Fall semester at University of Edinborough so we are adding international education to the mix.
If you were wondering, the boy who graduated second in his class spoke no English when he started kindergarten. I find that fascinating and inspiring.
Emma is doing very well at this (what my girls call “ghetto”) school. She is in the most advanced choir, drama and journalism. She is well liked and her social slip ups in middle school which lead me to home school her during middle school have faded.
At the start of last year she cried every day after school.
This year she couldn’t WAIT to get back to school for her choir camp. She is well loved by many.
With all this said, I would advise parents of all things: before you judge a particular mode of education, check it out thoroughly.
Don’t be dismissive “just because.”
If you choose public or private school, be a known entity on campus. Instead of immediately getting angry at the teacher or administrators, treat them with respect. This was tough for me because… not to brag… but I am an intelligent, well read Mommy. I am not a passive, “Oh, I don’t know anything” parent who can get pushed around.
On that note – don’t allow them to push you or your child around! NEVER EVER!
No child is a cog in a wheel. Each child is unique and is entitled by law to have a free, appropriate public education. If you elect to home school, look into online options which offer some instruction beyond what you are able to give yourself. That way you get at least time to drink coffee by yourself in the morning! Join home school support groups and involve your child (and yourself!) in the extracurricular activities.
Emma especially loved these opportunities.
Katherine, who I also homeschooled during Junior High, didn’t need them as much. Look at each of your children as unique individuals, too – because they ARE each unique individuals with unique strengths, weaknesses and needs.
I am passionate about education and educational needs of all children, unique and precious whether they are tiny little children or adult children. Can you tell?
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 visited John Muir’s home in 2009. It was awe-opening. I could literally feel his presence there. I stood across from the desk where he wrote all his books. It buzzed.
He had such a passion for wilderness. I do, too.
When I was on vacation recently, I got an annual pass to any and all US National Parks. What does this mean? I will be visiting as many as possible. On Vacation I visited Zion, The Arches, and Mesa Verde. I live relatively close to Sequoia and Yosemite. Once kids are back in school I will go to both of them and in October there is a cool program at Zion I want to attend.
It is so cool how the National Parks weave eco-friendly practices into the park culture.
They made ME think and helped me change my practice with water bottles. No more bottled water, on with reusable bottles I can add filtered water to instead. Over and over and over again.
It seems the generation beneath me has so much gusto for all things eco-friendly. Grateful to move beyond consumerism to environmental awareness.
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 -
Last week we started our road trip in Houck, Arizona: a town on the edge of the Navajo Nation where my eldest daughter Katherine helped work on houses all Summer Long. She came back to me quite capable with many tools I have no clue how to use.
She also still has blue house paint in her hair.
The other skill she has that I wish I had was a belief in herself as capable with power tools.
For whatever reason, I have bought into the “Real Women Don’t Use Power Tools, We Delegate that to Big Strong Handsome Mans Who Do Our Bidding.”
No more.
I want to use those power tools, too. I did use a sander this winter before painting in my living room, but I want to learn more. I want to build stuff, I want to repair stuff, I want to feel capable instead of unable. I want to feel confident of my ability to learn instead of thinking “oh, I could never do that.”
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
Did you enjoyed this essay? Receive emails directly to your inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -
Summer Blog Challenge for August 6 asks - Who Is Your Favorite Author
This is a toughie for me because I love so many writers from so many different genre. I love my students of writing first and foremost, though beyond them....
My favorite modern poet? Mary Oliver, most likely, though lately the words of Ellen Bass have woo’ed me.
My favorite “how-to-write” author is most likely Julia Cameron, though she has consistently got on my nerves since I had read her stuff, her suggestions have not only changed my writing they have changed my life. Whenever I find a new how-to-write author I am excited though. Right now I am reading Thinking about Memoir by Abigail Thomas. Her style ROCKS! Seriously… so simple, straightforward and so far it is jargon free. And I love the front cover photo.
My favorite memoirist? May Sarton. I think. Today, anyway.
My favorite children’s author? Probably still Laura Ingalls Wilder for the classics, Judy Blume for the my era classics. Plus I have always loved Hans Christian Anderson.
My favorite novelist? I don’t have one. I need to read more novels. I look forward to reading other Summer Blog Challenge posts so I can see what suggestions everyone makes.
It is great to be back – and I will be perusing earlier topics and adding my voice to some of them. I had a phenomenal heart opening road trip vacation. It is tough to be back and in my writing seat but here I am, I say proudly. Here I am!
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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(Special Note - the only images remotely resembling what I had in mind for this on flickr were both obscene. Please accept these goofy, loveable yet heinous critters in their place.)
Have you seen this big old hairy wort covered monster?
It huffs, it puffs, it continually blows down my house-of-cards-slice-of-time calendar and drives me into Mama-etc, insanity!
Because I have the super power of intuitive mind reading even now, I can see some of you nodding, smiling and yes – I even hear a groan or two.
My Super Power of Choice – The Time Stretcher!
Yes – when need be, I am able to stretch moments of time so that I can get what I need to get done, done without becoming a crazed whirling dervish at the same time – unless, ofcourse, I feel like being a Sufi Dancer – which is what a whirling dervish is so perhaps, if your super power is “I have to learn more cool interesting trivia” with that fact, you are now on your way.
I don’t need much, I just need that.
You know, when your best friend is coming over and you haven’t mopped your hard wood floor yet? It will only take ten minutes but there she is, pulling up in front of your house?
Zap the Time Stretcher into motion and the entire world, except for you, is on slo-motion.
You can get that floor mopped, calmly whisk on some mascara and lipstick, and greet her at the door with her favorite cup of tea and a smile on your face.
Plus you haven’t even broken a sweat.
My timer just went off. I was able to stretch time enough to write a respectable blog post in five minutes. I’ll take that, too.
(Special Note: There need to be more Moms posing as Super Hero's for the next round of Summer Blog Challenge. This is why I am stuck with a Mom Mobile image which is quite cute, but not exactly what I hoped to use! Grateful, though for the usage -
I talked about it last week with Chrissi, actually.
Chrissi was one of my recent couchsurfing guests and we were hiking together at Trail of 100 Giants at the Sequoia National Forest. I said something about how Americans always seem to insist on big goofy grins in their photos. “One of my French exchange students back, oh, fifteen years ago, commented on this. She was right. But I think now, it has changed. With digital photography, people seem to have calmed down the need for the whole “chhheeeeeeze!” pose constantly.”
My Mother had a favorite photo of me when I was a little girl. I haven’t seen it in years, but I can still see myself in it. I am sitting on a bench at Turtleback Zoo. I sat with my hair in braids, as always, a blue gingham sleeveless shirt, my hands on either side of my frame. I was probably waiting as I sat on the bench. I was eight years old, looking straight ahead of my view but you can only see my profile in the photo. I had no idea my photo was being taken or I would have hidden the question living in my face, my heart, my spirit.
This morning I was inspired by my friend Paula D’Andrea to focus on a song today. Well, Paula is always focused on Rockin' Life! but when my breakfast was accompanied by Jackson Browne on the Muzak, I laughed quietly at first and then thought, “This is not a song you hear often.”
By the time I got home, I felt the song was an assignment of sorts.
The first two stanzas:
Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer I was taken by a photograph of you There were one or two I know that you would have liked a little more But they didn't show your spirit quite as true
You were turning 'round to see who was behind you And I took your childish laughter by surprise And at the moment that my camera happened to find you There was just a trace of sorrow in your eyes
I feel a call today to study images of my own authenticity, to put those on display, to not concern myself with conventional norms like ugly or pretty or middle aged or out of shape or embarrassed, but instead focus on showing you my true spirit: unmasked, unafraid and non judgemental.
Cameron has told me my face is one of the most changeable he has encountered. I can look so different on any given day. Sometimes I think that is from being an actor but then, upon thinking, I think it is from being true. My face shows my emotions in that precise moment.
My emotions are worn differently on my face. I think they are authentic. Some of these photos I look prettier or more “conventionally acceptable” than others. What I love about them all is they are all perfectly 1,000% me.
This Spring I sat on a hill overlooking Bakersfield, one of my favorite spots in the world. My friend mentioned me and the words “deliriously happy” in the same sentence.
“I wouldn’t describe myself as happy.”
This photo was taken of me on that day
I wasn’t sure what prompted me to say this, but it is true.
I love and hate this photo. He used to capture fantastic photos of me, true photos of me. I am praying in this photo, perhaps trying to block out the lack of the love I used to feel and an attempt at being content with the love that remains.
It is truly me, even with the spot on my cheek waiting to be checked out by my doctor, the eyebrows that need reshaping, and my hair that was way too blonde for a while.
I am beyond happy. I don’t see happy as better than sad or maudlin as worse than blissful.
Authentic emotions, in the moment. That’s what I want to wear on my face.
This is me in the beginning of October, 2011. It is a very clear portrayal of precisely how I was feeling in that moment. I was in Westwood with my friend, Cameron. I asked him to take the shot and he just clicked away as I stood and "felt" - it is significant as a model (even if the only audience is you) to just be with what you are feeling instead of playing fashion model with the photographer choreographing the whole thing. If your intent is for a specific purpose other than catching your own authenticity, that is a whole different experience.
This photo was taken in September 2008, by my friend, Todd Powers with
Foxglove Photography. We did a session that night with these wonders of nature I had collected on a walk while I was working on a collection of poetry and essays called “Last Years Leaves.” I wish this photo shoot had an element of smell. It was soooooo heavenly with overripe and weathered, hungry leaves.
What I love is Todd gives me space to just experience and he just clicks. See how intent I am on the berries? I am not even thinking Todd is taking photos me me, I am clearly in the moment, a little sad, a little curious, a little hopeful, a little grounded, a little wishing I could float up and out of where I was.
This is Emma in Alice in Wonderland this November at her first High School play. She is an extension of me, always will be, and in this photo she reminds me so much of myself I decided to include it. She had a pretty miserable time during this process. This shot has the quality it does because I had to crop her out of a group but I love what her face says. “I am trying, I am here, I am successful because in my trying, I am doing, no matter how awkward or sad or lonely I am, I am here, on stage and in life, I am giving my all.”
My final photo for today is a self portrait I took. It was a part of my Soul Grief series. There was a time when I cried for 142 days in a row. I consciously created this because when I cried, I remembered, "I have no crying photos. Shoot this, now."
I wasn't faking these tears, I was feeling them.
I laugh now when I see women whose faces have been frozen in place by a variety of procedures so they can keep their skin smooth no matter what they are feeling. I would rather look conventionally ugly than falsely, conventionally beautiful.
Ironically, the second photo here - the one with my eyes open - is one of my favorite photos of myself looking, in my opinion, beautiful.
Don't you love photos like Emma's that say, "“I am trying, I am here, I am successful because in my trying, I am doing, no matter how awkward or sad or lonely I am, I am here, on stage and in life, I am giving my all.”
What more could life ask?
In the old days, I would plaster on my happy mask and move through my day, smiling no matter what. My mother even noted in my baby book, “Julie even smiles through her tears.” As a baby I had this life skill. As a baby I had this life skill.
It is a skill I no longer use. I am grateful for 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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