For the Love of Writing Groups: Filled with One Delightful Surprise After Another -

Seven pm, Tuesday.

I decided to take a walk on the nearby bluffs to have some quiet, reflective time as I bid the sun goodbye.

The unseasonably cool wind lifted my hair and danced with it as I laughed and snapped photos. I sat on a bench and watched other people who took time out to be with the setting sun. We are sometimes a unique tribe. One gentleman sat on the very edge of the outlook, using his backpack as a stool. There was a family of four on a blanket, the little girls playing with a ball and running around the trees. There was a bird whose feathers I didn’t recognize, who played “how can I best enjoy this wind current” who caught my attention and held it until she flew out of sight.

It wasn’t until this morning, the next day, I remembered my writing group.

I love writing in groups because what comes off the end of my pencil is different when the prompting is not solely my own. When I just write from what is on my agenda I tend to get more of the same of what I usually write. This changes when I allow others to urge me. It is like instantly allowing the rumblings of my heart to meet up with the rumblings of other hearts and just-like-that my words and I grow differently.

The words I birth in my writing groups are unpolished gems. This is a given.

Here’s what I mean: warm up writing is common in groups. Stream of consciousness is the only way to go and what words come are often ridiculous or lack form or at times they actually manage to refresh one’s life.

Prompt = In the wide open air, I feel...

In the wide open air I feel rejuvenated. How I love it.

I think of skies, stretching out... I think of the joy of opening my arms or quietly stretching into the sunset. West coast = sunset sky hugs rather than sunrise sky hugs. This year, before its end, I will reach into sunrise and hug it.

The school year = more sunrise sky hugs.

Out there, heading east after dropping Emma I discover things.

A surprisingly yellow dumpster, a bricked in arched doorway, surely a victim of that legendary long ago earthquake that swept away much of our historical architecture here. Gold country, my mind floods over to gold country and the hopes, perhaps, this weekend. Gold country.

Sunrise into the flecks of river water, golden river water.

I'm grateful warm ups don't need to make sense.

In the wide open air I don't need to make sense. I don't have to wear a certain hat. I don't have to button up my shirt or wear matching socks. In the wide open air I can speak pig latin, I can eat a chicken breast for breakfast, I can actually roll on my back, laughing at a  joke from three years ago I finally understood.

Did you get it?

Did you hear it?

In the wide open air, you do. And I am. And together all is just right.

= = = =

Do you see how my time of writing in community in the morning actually predicted my future last night?

I hadn’t even remembered writing those words when I was sitting on the bench, writing and being with the sunset, yet those words remembered me.

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 Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Coming soon - more creativity camps, playgrounds and workshops to grow yourself artistically (and hey, maybe just for fun, too!)

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