Julie Unplugged

Creativity: Stacked Up in Expectation, Discovery & Synchronicity

I know I look innocent here, but underneath that sweet exterior is an actress plotting....

My Daddy called me “Sarah Bernhardt” when I was at the stage between toddler and pre-schooler.

 

He called me the name of the famous actress because I put on quite a production as my mother was leaving the house to go to church or perhaps any activity that got her away from caring for so many children simultaneously. She had five of us in seven years, after all. She deserved a couple hours in church as her big “Woo hoo!” of the week.

I would carry on as if I was being fed to the lions as Mom, thankfully, eased her way out the door.

Daddy would note that I would watch the station wagon - a turquoise country squire, naturally - eased its way up Hawthorne Avenue and as soon as it was out of sight, my tears would stop and I would find some other way to entertain myself.

All was peachy until Mommy returned home when I reportedly would do a similar act, only this time it was “Mommy has saved the world, she has returned! She didn’t leave me forever! I am saved from two-year-old martyrdom!

Sometimes I wonder if a part of me somehow knew my future as a creative soul: writer, actor, mixed media artist, activist, Mommy… did I know how much emotions – and performance – would impact my life?

Sarah Bernhardt Image layered with a commentary about Gilbert and Sullivans "Iolanthe"

Today I have wobbled between exhaustion and creativity. It is similar to that time of first trimester. I’m not expecting a child, I am in the midst of “being pregnant” with creativity.  I’m coming up with things and starting to mix this and that so when I was looking through my images and some of my favorite photos of Sarah Bernhardt chose to show up and then when a commentary on Gilbert and Sullivan from an old music book literally got into my hands when I wasn’t paying attention, I responded.

 

I made what I call a “first stage layering” with a painted page and a photo.

I can’t take my eyes away from it.

I discovered an interesting fact of intersection in 1882 between this play, “Iolanthe” and Sarah Bernhardt. Look at what happened on December 11:

Boston's Bijou Theatre, 1st American playhouse lit exclusively by electricity,

1st performance, Gilbert & Sullivan's "Iolanthe"

Victorien Sardous "Fedora," with Sarah Bernhardt, premieres in Paris

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© 2013

Lessons from the Theatre: Past, Present & Future - Being with What Is Now

Lessons from the Theatre: Being with What Is Now

I can immerse myself in it still, as if it was happening in the here and now rather in the then and there.

 My friend, Kevan, strutting across the stage in a cameo appearance in a late night show I was appeared in was it nearly five or six years ago? The show was called True Tales 2. He was wearing chaps and only chaps. It was October. He died the following Spring but on that late evening in October, we didn’t know he was sick.

I laughed as he came through, but I never looked at him. Call it my puritanical roots, but I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t lift my head to watch him. He always left right after his brief appearance so we never got to giggle about it in the moment, it was just a “here and gone” thing.

Last Summer it was my melanoma diagnosis, surgery and scarring that kept me from the stage. I just wasn’t comfortable anymore and worse than the scar on my face, perhaps, was the scar on my heart. Like anything else, theatre had lost its luster for me. I didn’t think it was possible, but I had tired of it. I grieved this loss like any other: I got angry, I got sad, I got resigned, I gave up.

The last thing I was expecting while I was traveling in the Berkshires recently was a text message asking if I would be interested in taking a role someone else had left. I didn’t think about it, really, I just said yes. The day before I had

My "Family" from The Nerd: Two Tims and Me = The Walgrave Family

thought  to myself, “I miss theatre. I can’t believe it, I miss theatre!”

 

Three weeks later I was on stage again, three weeks later, I am off stage again.

I wouldn’t call myself sad per se, but I am not sure how exactly to describe what I am feeling.

Perhaps it is the bubbling up of gratitude: the awareness I wanted this, I did this, I enjoyed this, I tried my best at this.

Perhaps it is satisfaction of a job well done: applause and laughter from the audience, kudos from the creative team, pure delight at becoming another kooky character.

I have often given lip service to one of my favorite thoughts, “You never know when it will be the last time at your stage,” perhaps remembering Kevan’s nightly prance I never truly saw. I didn’t actually know this feeling personally, though.

Now I do know it.

After Strike: The Stage Goes Back to Neutral, Waiting for the Next Production

Every time I am out there I know it and remember it.

 

It isn’t a melancholy experience, it is more the grateful, satisfied, courageous experience of doing something purely for the love and letting myself go, fully, knowing this very well may be the final bow.

This reality the gift of melanoma gave me will undoubtedly be a bell whose ring I hear over and over again.

I’m surprised to say I am beginning to enjoy its tone.

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© 2013

In the Heart of the Mishmash of Experience I Came to Forget: 2012/13 = Getting Up & Getting Up & Getting Up

In theater and in life, its a mish mash of falling & getting up, over and over and over again

All week long I thought I “should” be writing about “it”: getting back on stage again after this tumultuous year.

It was my first “opening weekend” in a year. Sure, I have had spits and spurts of the theater world: I did VDay, I emceed a cabaret show, I did some storytelling and poetry gigs, but I didn’t allow myself the pleasure nor assign myself the responsibility of creating collaboratively over the long term. I didn’t say yes – nor did I audition to create any possibilities of the pleasure and the sadness I have come to know intimately during my last decade in local theater.

I was on a break from theater when I noticed the changes of what I thought was just another mole taking up real estate on my face. It was pink and therefore in the “not scary” category, but when it started puffing out I became curious. I almost didn’t go to the doctor about it, though, because I thought I was (literally) making a mountain out of a mole hill.

My doctor told me I was smart to come in to get the mystery mole checked. I didn’t realize there would be a parade of people photographing and measuring and clucking about my face as I sat there, somewhat inert, eyes wide and more than slightly curious.

I was sent to a dermatologist who informed me over the phone a week after biopsy that it was, in fact, melanoma, and to meet with the surgeon asap, they had set a date for me where I went and then a few days of testing for surgery prep – in which I also was sure to get my overdue mammogram. It seemed like I had time enough to sneeze between my first appointment and when I sat in the operating room saying to Ash the anesthesiologist, “This feels sort of like a massage table,” and waking up almost simultaneously staring at the ceiling back where it all started, a big bandage across my face.

That was nine months ago. It is equivalent to the time spent in pregnancy. Like pregnancy, no one tells you exactly what to expect mostly because while there is a vague blueprint, each patient and each cancer is different. My scar is finally maturing now – I can feel all of my face again and the glory of my smile lines disappearing is now more like my smile lines assimilating themselves into the heart shaped scar I now wear.

You might wonder what any of this has to do with opening weekend.

It has a lot to do with opening weekend for me. It has been my season of playing Sisyphus, the mountainous impossibility I believed cancer created yet no one else, it seemed, could see. I read the words of Albert Camus which read, “Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him?”

I couldn’t, in the early days, imagine hope or success being intimates with me again.

Instead I had more than one verbal sparring match with friends I loved, lots of tears shed, intense disappointment of myself amidst some people reassuring me my scar was “practically invisible” to others curiously wondering, “Is that scar a result of trauma?” and probably hoping for a more dramatic story than noticing, doctoring and waking up as a cancer survivor.

Somewhere within the mishmash of experience I came to forget, most of the time, that I wore a heart shaped scar on my face. I started making conversation with strangers again, for example, even though they weren’t always as smooth as in the past. I started laughing loudly in public again. I even started agreeing to have my photo taken again.

I started giving myself permission to miss theater again, to long to be on stage again.

I was in the Berkshire Mountains when I got a text from my friend, Tim, saying he needed to find a wife for the play “The Nerd” and the director had asked for suggestions. He suggested me and I thought about it and said, “Hey, if they want me, I’m in but I can’t start for another week.”

I returned to rehearsal the day I returned home from my east coast travels.

The second day of rehearsal I decided I needed to give my directors a way out from under my scar. “If you want to find someone else who doesn’t have a scar, its fine with me. I understand. I wasn’t sure if you knew before asking me about my melanoma and surgery, so I just wanted to be sure you are comfortable…”

They said they were so I chose to believe them.

I survived worry about losing my abilities on stage. I survived worry about getting more corrective notes than I usually do. I survived worry about my daughter, Emma, who had a personal crisis throughout which came to a dramatic climax on the second day of tech week.

I remembered the lost art of getting back up. And getting back up. And getting back up.

It is Sunday morning of opening weekend.

I am exhausted and satisfied. I thought I wanted to get away to the beach or something similar today, but that just felt like too much effort. Instead, I am here, writing these words, processing all that has happened and allowing myself to continue opening more doors of possibility.

I am peeking in without attachment.

I am listening and accepting and growing without judging.

I am willing to dangle my feet into the flow without flinging my whole self back in until I feel “good and ready.”

I am even comfortable not coming up with “tying all of these thoughts in a carefully crafted red bow” and bringing it all to you in a caravan of word-pleasure.

I am here. This morning. You’ve read a snippet of what I have been doing.

That is more than enough. 

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© 2013 Julie Jordan Scott

Today I'm Playing with Optimism, Images and Words. What are You Playing with today?

Julie and Clelia, from the Nerd, Converge

This is just plain, flat out weird and completely normal for me.

I was lamenting yesterday, well, more accurate is whining, that I had not written a poem during the entire month of April which also happens to be National Poetry Month. This is not entirely true. I wrote several haiku and if I took out my notebook from my Berkshires jaunt and airport shuffle I would find some word-fruit ready to go through the juicer.

This morning, I remembered one of the books I set aside recently and then picked back up recently by a writer who was reminding us to try different forms, just for fun.

I decided to try what Priscilla Long calls a braid.

A poetic prosey braid of words.

Some of us are multitaskers, after all, and though I know the power of pure, clean focus, I also know there are certain items on my list of possibilities today that if I take on a task that fills more than one check mark, I’ll choose to do that.

Braid = writing practice + Character work (for the Nerd) + Blog Post = A moment of pure joy which is now available for your reading pleasure. First draft.

Ready? Go.

# # # # #

Tucked a bunch of her stuff in her purse. They are mine/hers for now, until she completely swallows each piece.

This was the tipping point. Cinderella running away from the ball and into the asylum.  Rose in breast before disappearing.

Yellow. Charlotte. Activism. Wallpaper. Societal. Sleep Cure. Never. Pick. Pencil.

She is each of us, all of us, none of us. She needs her things as I need mine.

Golden Key was “the talking key”, I remember, before the twist of the heel in the calf, while face kissed dirt.

Myself. Seldom.  ancestral . summer. Ordinary. Mere.  Secure.  John. Halls.

To remember we are here. To touch. Turn sting rays into velvet.

Another tipping point. The simple joy of buying nonsense at estate sales.

Why. Every. Creep. Fainted. Did. Path. Time. Across. Wall.  

# # # # #

I feel more than a tinge of guilt for not really caring whether or not you enjoy this bit of self indulgent folly.

It actually feels like more to me and I suppose that is what counts: how I continue to walk along my particular process. I love you, dearly, yes.

I would honor your particular creative process too, yes.

Today I am playing and creating with words, images, curiosity and letting go.

What are you playing and creating with today?

 

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© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott

A is for Aphra Behn: Our Literary Grannies from A to Z

Aphra Behn was an eccentric, wise woman who was well ahead of her times of 17^th Century England. She had quite a sumptuous career before she started writing: she was a spy for England but when King Charles II didn’t pay her for her work in Antwerp, she got sent to debtor’s prison.

Not one to feel victimized and “stuck” in prison, Mrs. Behn (she was married for perhaps a year to Mr. Behn before he died) started writing plays while there. Upon her release she officially became the first professional woman writer in English literature. Some may argue other women wrote before her, but she was the first independent woman to write who actually worked in order to make her living.

Aphra’s first literary success was for the plays she wrote.

Her dream, though was to be remembered for her poetry. Instead, her plays and her novella, Oroonoko, are now considered her most important and influential work. Oroonoko  was a story of an enslaved African prince. It is now considered an important beginning to the development of the English novel.

She had quick success in The Forc'd Marriage in1670. It was an immediate success – well loved and made Behn a financially successful woman as well.  It was followed in 1671 by The Amorous Prince. Five of her plays were produced in the next five years 

Her biggest financial success came next, via The Rover which was produced in 1677. Nell Gwyn, the famed actress and mistress to King Charles II, came out of retirement to play the role of the whore, Angelica Bianca ('white angel').  The Duke of York (he later became King James II) was another fan of the play. 

As Aphra continued to write, her plays became more and more sexual in tone and she was even more gossiped about in the papers and in the circles who tittered and gasped yet somehow continued to support her productions. I wonder if they wore costumes so as not to be seen? Women involved in the theater were also rumored to have a second career in the world’s oldest profession, so she was fighting a battle on several sides.

Playwright Robert Gould wrote of Aphra and other women writers "Punk and Poetess agree so Pat,/ You cannot well be This, and not be That.^”  The pious Alexander Pope said, “The stage how loosely does Astræea tread/ Who fairly puts all characters to bed.^”

I don’t think she cared. She just kept writing.

Her book of poetry, Poems Upon Several Occasions, was published in 1684. She continued to become more and more successful until her death .  She was laid to rest after her death on April 16, 1689 in the Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey. I think this would have made the baudy, over the top, fun loving Aphra very, very happy.

Centuries later, Virginia Woolf further eulogized her, writing:

All women together ought to let flowers fall upon
the tomb of Aphra Behn, ...for it was she who earned
them the right to speak their minds.

This post is the first of 26 in a series I will be writing and sharing in April,2013. The challenge is simple and SUCH fun!

Check out the A to Z Challenge here.

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It's like going to a love fest for women.... #socsunday

I have wanted to write about this all week but it took a prompt from Jana's Thinking Place and Stream of Consciousness Sunday to get the words flowing.

Today's prompt: "It's like going to..." nudged me into writing about a cause I have supported for the last ten years. Seeing not only the cause rise up but women rise up, in love, year after year... well.... here's the story, written in five minutes:

It’s like going to a love fest for women.

It’s like throwing away, once and for all, the cultural norm of “women are catty” and “women don’t like other women” and “never trust your back to another woman.”

It’s another experience of VDay Bakersfield. We raise money for a local agency, Alliance Against Family Violence as well as the annual funds for a group named by Eve Ensler and her women at the national VDay organization which gives waives the cost to perform the play, The Vagina Monologues  and join an international movement.

Can anything be bigger than being a part of One Billion Rising, joining with women worldwide to make a difference?

I think there are bigger things that live right within our local movement.

It is the miracle of women coming together who have never met before and women returning, year after year, not because of ego or what role they play or how many lines they have or how many times the spotlight hits their face or how many laughs or tears their performance gets, it is about love for the world, love for women and girls and the men who love them and personifying that here in a tiny microcosm of women in Bakersfield.

It is moving beyond the politics yet into politics, it is diving into the deeply personal and intimate. It is using words that feel foreign to us and allowing ourselves to speak publicly what we believe and be supported whole heartedly and souledly (not sure if that’s a word but it should be) while we do it.

I feel sadness for women who do not become a part of it.

I feel profound grief for the women who have lost their lives due to violence or lost their courage due to their voices being stripped from them or lost their innocence because of rape or bullying or seeing a murder of a loved one as they stood by helpless.

Sure, we can stay inside the world of sitcoms and reality shows and just hanging out “being cool” or we can stretch and grow and love people more deeply than we ever knew we could.

VDay: its like going to a love fest for women.

**********************

This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
• Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
• Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post (in the sidebar). .
• Link up your post at Jana's Thinking Place.
• Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love. 

Julie Jordan Scott is a Creative Life Coach, a Poet Performer, a Writer and a Mommy Extraordinaire. Stay in touch with her via twitter or facebook or you may always call or text her at 661.444.2735 to arrange a complimentary coaching session. Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot  

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© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott

The Best Celebration of Healing Yet: Some Jokes, Some Song & Lots of Ho Ho Ho

This isn't written from a prompt by any reverb prompters AND it is an important reflection on my way to restoration back to being 1000% myself.

I didn’t know how exciting it would be to get on stage again. I stepped out in the place that has, in recent years, but such a sanctuary for me last night and I actually felt really good.

It was the first time in months I was wearing makeup. I had been afraid to until now.

Some quick background so you can follow what the heck I am talking about.

Last Spring I took my first turn as an emcee for my friend’s cabaret/burlesque dance troupe. I said yes primarily because I had chosen to take a break from acting and this gave me the chance to be on stage and still practice my craft to a certain extent without the long term commitment of doing a show weekend after weekend after rehearsing from four to six months at a time.

I didn’t realize how fun it would be: telling jokes, telling stories, filling time when the dancers were changing from one very cute usually skimpy costume at a time.

Flash forward to August and my cancer - melanoma, specificallu, diagnosis.

I would have to have some melanoma taken from my face and have a reconstruction of my face in September. I wasn’t sure what this entailed, exactly, and while the surgery itself wasn’t as bad as it could have been, I have not enjoyed the recovery very much.

I didn’t know what to expect so I think I have been frustrated by my new right cheek more than anything else. Frustrated.

When Diana asked me again to emcee I thought I would be completely clear by December, surely, and I said yes.

I wondered about this wisdom as the date drew near but I really wanted to sing this time. I really wanted to try out some new jokes and I thought with a Christmas theme and me portraying Mrs. Claus it would be nothing but fun.

Well, it was better than that… it was nothing but pure, ecstatic fun from the time I stepped onstage the first time and until I thanked the crowd. Tonight I need to sew up my earliest schtick with my ending schtick. Gotcha.

I kept asking the leader, “Is it ok if I do….” And “Do you mind if I?”….and she said, “Anything goes,” which was such great freedom for me. I just prayed I didn’t insult anyone. I do know I made a lot of people laugh. As a performer, there is nothing like hearing people laugh and seeing each pair of eyes on you, whether you have a scar on your face or not.

The smiles weren’t about my heart shaped scar, covered for the first time with foundation and blush, they were about my capacity to enjoy the heck out of myself out there on stage and pass a little Ho Ho Ho onto everyone else.

Tonight I collected some new jokes to tell, some new stories. I will do even better on my song. The dancers got their kinks worked out and are even going to rehearse today before the show.

Did I forget to mention I am actually a part of one of the dance numbers?  I almost feel like I am a dancing member now. Well, not exactly. My costume is nothing like theirs but hey, I did shake my grove thang.

I apologize for saying that. My daughters would be doing a face palm if they heard me attempt that BUT the show must go on and tonight, I will even insist upon getting photos.

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott

Waiting on The Disabled List: The Tickle that Creeps, Crawls & for Now Must Be Ignored

It started with a strange tickle that lived in the back of my throat and slowly crawled toward my belly.

It happened last Sunday when I had the not-so-sudden realization I miss the stage. I miss performance. I miss creating collaborative performance art.

This time, though, there is nothing I can do about it except wait.

I am on the Disabled List: the DL.

No theater for me until my scar turns into at least slightly more easily masked by make-up.

Now, before you “Pshaw” my thoughts – as I know some of you will – recognize I am respecting the audiences first and foremost. After all, I am the audience member who hears two people telling wildly divergent stories both using the same metaphor within thirty minutes and it gets under my nostrils in the most annoyingly itchy way.

I don’t want audience members to be distracted by the “is that meant to be there?” or “does she have a smudge on her face?” or “did she have some sort of facial surgery she doesn’t want us to see?” to distract from the storytelling.

My job now is to wait and to do the best I can to enjoy the waiting.

As my internal longing gets louder I know it might make it more difficult to attend theater events. I haven’t seen a show since before surgery and I have attended one post-surgery “theater people gathering.”

I have actually committed to do some storytelling soon although I don’t know the exact date.

This is a step in the right direction: low key commitment, not much time investment, and even though I have written some intense pieces in preparation, I know I can pull it off. I know I can pull it off well.

It is like I have told actors and directors before: because I never know when my last time on stage will be, my intention is always to do the best I am able to do each time I am out there and revel in the experience, no matter what it brings.

For now, I’m benched.

It is up to me to be sure I make that the exact place I want to be. For right now.

 Top Right Photo Courtesy of Michelle Guerrerro

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott

This is my eleventh 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.

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Coming to the End of a Collaborative Work: Gratitude for the "Reckless" Experience

I have given myself five minutes to write about this today because I have been procrastinating and, quite frankly, I need to give voice to this and if I don’t do so now I probably won’t say it.

Last June I stepped off the stage with a strong commitment to take a break from theater.

I think the higher level me – what some of my friends would call the higher conscious self – was aware a crash was coming. The everyday Julie didn’t know that right around the corner lurked my personal equivalent of a plane crash followed by an earthquake and fire all at once.

It was such a personal plane crash-earthquake-fire many of my closest friends and my family don’t even know about the specifics of what happened. That is how I am keeping it for now because that is what works for me.

In the last year I learned this: you just don’t dust yourself off after a plane crash, earthquake and fire. It takes time and deliberate action and sometimes you have to leave things and people you love behind while you focus on restitching the seams on your coat or restocking the refrigerator or getting the burns off the end of your hair cut into some semblance of tolerable.

Tonight is closing night for Reckless  a play by Craig Lucas at the Empty Space Theater here in Bakersfield. When it comes to closing nights, I am extra… looking for the words… conscious of the “coming to an end of a collaborative work” part of it.

Since I went on my theater break last June, I have been extra careful about what I commit myself to do: I want to be sure each show fits a certain criteria. I cut myself off from audition notices and theater notices because I know I will be tempted by such things that perhaps don’t fit this criteria but I might be attracted to do, anyway.

I did two shows in March: completely insane to do, but they weren’t originally scheduled the way they ended up being scheduled. I don’t recommend anyone do simultaneous tech weeks. I was asked to audition for these plays by the Directors and I loved them and the people involved with them very much but it was like not eating for months and then having a mammoth chocolate Sunday as your first meal.

I withdrew again.

My friend, Michelle, asked me if I was going to audition for Reckless and I said no. I was on a break from auditioning. I needed space, I couldn’t do the theater thing right now, I told her. Sometimes life helps us make the right choices even when we plan for something else.

The director of Reckless, my dear friend Bob, wrote me an email after the initial read through of the play, wondering if I would be willing to take a very small role in it because one of his actors had dropped out. He mentioned the part I would play and I asked about dates for the play and lo and behold the pieces snapped into place.

Michelle, my friend who wanted me to audition in the first place, became my scene partner. Every night we step into the alley behind the theater and work through our scene. Every night we do this just to insure our confidence is high and to work out any marble-mouthed kinks in our performance.

There have been so many bonuses with this show: I not only play a ridiculously fun character, I looked forward to be in a cast with people who I enjoy. And now, as we close, I enjoy them even more than when we started. This is rare for me.

Tonight I will step off the same stage I stepped off from last June. I am a much stronger version of the-me-back- then. I feel better than I have in at least six years or seven years.

This version of me gives herself  space to say, “I hurt when endings come and go. I hurt to know I may never see these people again and in fact probably will never see these same people assembled again. It hurts to let go of the collaboration we created here.”

The gentle-strong me doesn’t like that.

The gentle-strong me knows it is inevitable.

The gentle-strong me is beyond words grateful to be able to create and feel and have one last audience to perform for tonight.

The gentle-strong me is still not looking for auditions. I’ll sit it out until another Director calls me and says, “Hey, are you able to…….?”

If it fits, I’ll commit my whole self to whatever character I am privileged to play.

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott

 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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#SOCSunday ~ On Reinvention: That New Skin Looks Grand on You!

Today's prompt from Stream of Consciousness Sunday from AllThingsFadra.com:

What does it mean to reinvent yourself?

I have lost count of how many times I have reinvented myself.

I left a stable job with corporate America after my first baby was stillborn and I just needed a break from everything that was before she died. I played stay-at-home, Bible Study going, nodding at the cocktail party attending, no one asking me a question at parties because I obviously wasn’t interesting enough to talk to woman for a bit. I segued into county bureaucrat for a while – which nearly killed me until I reinvented myself as life coach/speaker/teleclass leader/writer/poet.

The writer/poet was actually the given throughout my entire life. The other costumes were like skins, shed when I was time to evolve into the next me.

I am evolving right along now, right on schedule.

It has been nearly five years since my brother died, my Mom got diagnosed with cancer and Samuel got diagnosed with autism.  The biggest event after that event was the non-event of “The Aftermath” which I am just now pulling out from underneath – the aftermath and all the accessories it comes alongside.

I am actually interested in my business again: that whole Life Coach/Teleclass Leading/Speaking/Writer/Performance Poet me is back, almost with a vengeance. I am laughing more. I am shedding less. I am talking less and acting more.

I am acting in theater less.

I am being 1,000 percent (and somewhat) comfortable with this latest reinvention of myself.

Sometimes I get flustered when my friends reinvent themselves in a way that interferes with my view of my own reinventions, but luckily I am so accustomed to it, I am entertained more than anything else. I nod and smile and remember what it was like when I reinvented myself for the first, second or third time.

Now I know my skin gets shed and a new skin is there, instantly. Sometimes it looks better, sometimes it looks worse, but it is always interesting. Life hasn’t been boring since I left my days as a bureaucrat.

Congratulations, beloved Fadra, for your most recent reinvention, even if it means Sundays won’t be precisely the same from now. It just makes space for the rest of us to be free to reinvent and live some questions of our own.

I honor this space you have created for us.

You are love incarnate as we are, too. I am grateful for this time. Maybe now you will have more time to tell your stories? Whatever you decide, do it with the great love you are – that goes for each and all of you, not only Fadra.

Be love as you shed your skin and stand back, looking in the mirror at your new skin. It looks good on you.

    This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
• Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
• Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
• Link up your post at AllThingsFadra.com
• Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

Follow me on Twitter: @juliejordanscot 

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott

 

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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