Post random thoughts, observations, and events of the day...

Intriguing how the family psychic connection works.

Last night I was stepping into the shower when the thought, “My extended family never pays any attention to what I do and I am so glad I am over that fact.”

I was thinking how my youngest brother posts photos of his children or posts something on facebook and the sibs gather around to hit the “Like” button and oooh and ahhh every accomplishment from him and his family. That’s cool, that’s how it should be, and I am right there with them, happily clicking “like” and happy high fiving whatever I see that comes along from Joe or any of my other remaining four siblings or my parents, all of whom are on facebook, too.

Life on facebook reflects life everywhere, doesn’t it?

This morning I was checking out my profile page and noted my eldest brother had clicked “like” on the haiku I posted this morning.

What?

I had to blink, once in disbelief and once to keep the tears that had formed from falling down my face.

Why is this stuff still an issue for me?

Why have I not let it all go? Am I not supposed to let it all go?

I am meeting my first 43ter in person. Ohmigawsh. And I am crying in anticipation.

Meeting my first 43ter in person – in the city which was my home when I was a baby.

I had forgotten to make that connection!

YES! This trip is SOOOOO much more significant than I had even imagined!!

Crying more!!!

Today is another read through and it is not “just” another read through. This project calls to me as an artist and it romances me in the soul sense. Today I start work on “Zombie High”, a new short- film being made by Inclusion Films.

I feel deep within me that my participation in this project is a homecoming to people who I have not met but who I am closer to than many people I have known for years. It is difficult to put what I feel into words. .

Just a week ago I was waging warfare on myself, not sure if I wanted to go through with the audition or not because there were too many roadblocks in the path. Certainly these roadblocks were telling me not to bother, right?

That’s what I hear far too often – people perceive challenges as reasons to not do something when in actuality, challenges are often times the exact reason one must do something.

My challenges ran the gamut, from physical challenges to belief challenges.

Every actor I know has some level of disbelief in himself or herself. I knew there were more than likely people auditioning for the role I was auditioning for who were more suited age-wise, who were more attractive and more experienced. I felt that “Why bother?” voice creeping into my preparation.

The audition day was ridiculously busy – I had more appointments than I had time to fulfill them. Who did I think I was, attempting to slide an important audition into the mix. Wouldn’t it be easier just to bail on the whole thing before it started?

My printer wasn’t working, so I couldn’t print out my resume. (Solution: Call my friend at PIPS, email my resume, and have them print it for me.)

The folks at my usual photo lab wouldn’t print my photos due to copy right issues. I understand this one, it was my own mistake. I opted to arrive at the audition sans photos since I had previously emailed photos. I trusted it was acceptable to not be absolutely perfect and follow all of the guidelines exactly to their specifications.

This is enormous to me, one who likes to follow instructions as closely as possible both for personal comfort and also due to a life long history of “fear of making other people mad.”

I texted Hester, who was facilitating the process, telling her I was a bit late and would be arriving, most likely, a couple minutes late.

I got closer to the downtown building praying aloud two simple words, “Parking space, parking space, parking space, parking space” and God heard my call. I parked and literally floated into the basement where the auditions were being held.

Hester met me and advised me, so like I would advise auditioners, “Take a breath… yes, just breathe…” so I did.

I didn’t allow my belief barriers to get in my way. I didn’t allow myself to fuss over my appearance or lack of skillfully applied make up or lack of designer clothing. I caught my breath and before I knew it I was swept into the audition itself.

The audition itself remains like a dream in my memory.

I remember the voices of the production team: familiar East Coast accents. I remember the cameras and seeing myself on a screen so I knew I was being filmed, which normally sets me back creatively as I get self conscious of my appearance.

I remember being directed towards my “mark” which was taped onto the floor, which I took as a reminder to stay grounded and not wander from my aim – doing the best performance possible.

I remember a sea of faces, glorious faces – the participants in the Able Program who were key participants in the making of this film, some of whom asked me questions before and after the audition itself began.

I remember letting go of my worries about not knowing enough about what was desired of me and allowing myself to create wildly – perhaps even a bit recklessly – loud and silly and over the top.

I remember getting some direction and pulling back and trying again and feeling grateful for the opportunity to give them what they wanted.

I remember applause and thank yous.

I remember leaving the room and floating back up the stairs and crying on my way home. My crying was not filled with sadness, but with an overwhelming sense of joy and hope.

My friend and neighbor, Jill, sent me a message on facebook, asking me how it went.

I responded:

I had the best time ever at an
audition – I felt like there was a magical doorway
to my forever home right there on
18th Street and no one had told me about it
until I tumbled into it yesterday afternoon.
Head over heels over heart I fell down those
stairs to be changed, forever, even if I am
not cast in the movie. I have spent a lot of my life
working with folks who are “differently
abled”... and now, with Sam, the whole concept
is even closer – if possible to be closer than
it has always been – to my heart. Right down
to the accents of the folks who were leading the
audition reminding me of my New Jersey home.
This audition had a sense of coming home for me.
I loved each and every minute.

Today I have read through for a movie being filmed next month here in Bakersfield.

A homecoming, a beginning, a renewal, a blessing, a becoming.

But I am not in the trailer… but its fun, because Coryn looks so dark cute! Check it out!

http://juliejordanscott.typepad.com/julie_unplugged/

I was being followed by Henry David Thoreau on Twitter. Wow. Who may be next?

I am working on a book project with a group of fellow writers and am feeling very oh, I don’t know, tired of it?

Interesting: I am realizing I am feeling like I am doing a lot of work and it isn’t valued while the others sit back and criticise and they make suggestions which aren’t entirely workable in the publishing world.

Ahhh, well.

Note to self, I truly don’t know it all (in fact, I have a real distaste for know it alls) and need to be aware of when I am feeling upset because my feelings are hurt rather than facts, just the facts.

Perhaps a year or so ago… written by Amy Lowell, probably 100 years ago:

“I am tired, beloved, of chafing my heart against the want of you; of squeezing it into little ink drops, and posting it. And I scald alone, here, under the fire of the great moon.”

Amy Lowell

I published this essay, or this was a part of an essay, I published in my ezine, Daily Passion Activator. The part I didn’t mention there is that Mom has Parkinson’s disease. She is doing well and is always telling me “I have no restrictions!” which I think she is telling herself more than me. Anyway – here is what came from my fingers to the keyboard today.

It is a usual rather unusual event in my life.
I ponder something while I am snug inside
my house. I walk to my car, I get in and
start the car moving and the tears flow.

This morning I was thinking about the
visit with my mother yesterday. Katherine,
Emma and I watched TV with her after
a yummy meal of chili and corn muffins
which I provided, hearty fare for a very
chilly Bakersfield night.

We didn’t do anything monumental, we
simply spent time with one another, side
by side, conversing in bits and pieces and
chunks. We watched “Ugly Betty,” something
I don’t watch very often. I got so relaxed I
wasn’t sure if I would be able to keep my
eyes open until ER was on, a Thursday
night ritual for me – a “Must See” in this,
the final season.

My girls and I stepped into the night. I was
almost out of hearing range when I heard,
“Goodnight, my baby, I love you.” It was
so faint I wasn’t sure if I heard it.

I so wanted to hear it.

I called back, much more loudly, “Sweet
dreams, Mom!”

This morning, the echo of Mom’s voice played
in my ears. “Goodnight, my baby, I love you.”
In the light of dawn, the words sounded
like a prayer.

The words, I realize, the message, is a prayer.

I drove Emma to school and cried. I tried to
hold the tears in my throat and I heard an odd
high-pitched almost-wail come from inside me.
Emma gets upset by my tears, so I wanted to
keep them from her. They sounded almost like
that baby inside me, that baby my mother
obviously remembers.

The other pondering that continued to play
in my mind-and-heart was a morning pages
snippet from several days ago, again related
to my parents, brothers and sister. I was busily
compiling essays to put into a Chapbook
Christmas Gift for my siblings, a way, I
thought, of helping them come to know ]
this woman I am.

I oftentimes feel alienated from my siblings,
left out from the rest of them. I am getting
better at not letting it bother me – and part
of that is instead of hiding who I am from
them, I am just being who I am and celebrating
who I am in front of them – although I
am not in front of them very often.

In my morning pages I wrote, as if
speaking to my brothers and sister:

This is me.
You don’t have to like me.
It is unnecessary at best. Cool if
You did, but wholly and
holy unnecessary.

We long to be known as who we are and
even more so, I discovered as I drove Emma
to school this morning, we long for people
to know who we are and to love us unabashedly
either because of who we are or in
spite of who we are.

When we are babies, people love us as these
lumpy, drooling, noisy and sometimes smelly
little being: we are loved unabashedly when
we are babies. Why? We are loved simply
for our presence in the world.

This doesn’t have to change, does it?

My mother’s goodbye prayer is now
deeply coded within my heart. “Goodnight,
my baby, I love you.” I don’t even know for
sure she said it or if God said it, for her, and
spoke what she wanted to say, aloud, to me.

It is wholly and holy unnecessary that I
know the speaker of the prayer.

What matters more is that now, today, I
receive the message completely.

That the speaker knows me for exactly
who I am and loves me, profoundly.

I realize also that the prayer, spoken, is
also directed at me to be conscious of the
quality of the love I give to others. Love
is something I can give unabashedly,
always, as well.

Today, I am going to practice that – with
a variety of people.

It road up on a black horse, asking to be written. So I said, ok, ok, I will put you into words and share you.

And the way 43things formats, I didn’t approve of how it looked so I am adding some words to hopefully make the haiku more aesthetically pleasing.

don’t say yeah but or….
my head will spin on my neck
just o p e n your a r m s…..

There. I did it. Now leave me alone, go away, stop stomping around in my mind.

Manage to make me choose to feel twelve years old again?

I had written to her about the upcoming wedding of my former foster daughter. Tangled relations, I know.

Anyway – it is to be on Halloween, I am dragging two of my children to the event. Emma refuses to attend. My foster daughter has hurt her repeatedly and Emma doesn’t want to set herself up for more. She might be better off going, but she is choosing not to and I am not going to force her.

I wrote to Mom and mentioned this and mentioned forgiveness and the fact that the rest of us are going even if we aren’t thrilled with it, we are going – and then I wrote about Sam (she had asked about him) and then I wrote about myself, that I am keeping my head above water for the most part, thanks in great part to my friends who help keep my shoulders steady without even knowing it.

Well, Mom wrote back saying “Your words seem to be the surface rather than the real issue. I have some understanding about forgiveness at it’s deepest level, but perhaps not as much as your family must experience.”

And then went on to say, “Friends are our greatest asset when life seems bleak. “God gave us our family, but thank God we can choose our friends”, and better yet, we know they chose us.Please know I choose you as a friend, and though you are my daughter, you are someone I choose to love, not because I have too,but because I want to.”

Knowing how slowly she types, all I can say is a long O-U-C-H.

Another reason to look forward to this fabulous (did I mention this part) Halloween day. So Sam is missing out on Halloween, the first ever he has been excited about – ever.

My heart hurts.