I am not the ordinary Momschlepper. I drive my daughter to school at Bakersfield High School and wave goodbye, say my “I love you’s” and “make good choices”. She shuts the door and music from “Risky Business” starts playing in my head even as the radio stays consistently silent.
Yesterday I drove toward my home, excited to have thirty moments of creative time at the keyboard before I started my gig as grandbaby’s caretaker.
These flowers in this light - truly uncapturable with my phone's camera - are what called me into this creative moment
I was minding my own business, driving past the Catholic church and school where the usual lines of SUVs and Minivans were dropping off plaid uniform clad children when I noticed the light on a purple flowered bush on a house across the street.
“Keep driving,” one side of my brain said.
“Oh, the light on those flowers…” said another of the cast of characters in my brain.
“That light is only here for this moment - capture it!” said another, causing my hand to reach for my phone.
“Stop the car to to do that!” said another, bringing my car to a safe u-turn and before I knew it, I was walking toward the bush barefoot.
I hadn’t bothered to wear shoes on my Momschlep run.
I balanced myself along the curve, taking photos, enjoying the light, completely unconcerned about anything except for the view from my phone’s camera and the delicious process itself. I felt the wet grass and the concrete curb under the soles of my feet. I smelled the sweetness of the morning air, reminding me of anticipation and pencil erasers. I felt the gentle morning breeze on my face, playing in my hair.
I made the church my subject.
I made the house my subject.
I remembered a dream I had long ago, featuring this house when it was yellow and had pine tree sentries flanking the front door.
As I write this morning, I see today’s sun rising outside my window. I turn the desk lamp off so I can really see it.
I am reminded how moments of what may look like casual creativity have sparked all of who I am as an artist of this one life I’ve been given.
Today I have another chance to get a tiny sliver closer to getting it right, one tiny toe better in the race to become fully engaged in making this world brighter for others.
Henry David Thoreau said it like this, “living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.”
I feel a passionate obligation to express myself as a joyful, continually growing human being so that you may see it is possible to be fully alive, fully human, fully engaged and fully feeling in each moment of each day of this wildly wonderful gift of life you and I have been giving.
Are you ready?
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Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming Fall and Winter, 2014 and beyond.
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