Today I wanted to go to Los Angeles for a Poetry event that
sounds so
I mapped out my plan: a labyrinth at a garden in Pasadena, followed by a Used Book Store Adventure on Spring Street culminating in a two hour poetry/art/music fest in a museum I’ve always wanted to visit including a poet I have admired for years. Read her books, heard about her performances from other well respected poets – I finally convinced myself I was worth making the 120 mile each way journey on my own when I woke up to a car that wouldn’t start.
The expression on her face says, “What the hell is going on and how the hell did I get here?” A loan sunflower is attempting to fly up rather than down from her box.
I wrote:
I am one who enjoys making plans and is, most of the time, resilient to the plans breaking up and finding myself free falling into whatever otherness happens to be there.
I am one who is tenacious no matter what the circumstances, and although my face doesn’t necessarily show it, I am perpetually optimistic AND I deserve to admit to disappointment.
I am one who is not like the cookie-cutter masses or even like my closest friends. I am getting better at realizing just because they love me it doesn’t mean they don’t love all my varied activities and even because they don’t love those activities it doesn’t mean they don’t love me.
I am one who is familiar with disappointment and while not excited when it happens, I can leave my box behind… most of the time.
I am one who prefers to hang out with flowers and empty boxes than people who don’t get it. While I enjoy inspiring those “close to breaking free” there are times like these when it is perfectly ok not to want to hang out with people who look at me as if I missed the bus back to whatever institution has charge of me. For those in the know, picture a nineteenth century asylum.
Now I am smiling. I am making plans for a differently shaped day. I am definitely doing coffee at my favorite hang out with a friend who has been out-of-town for the past few seasons. Perhaps I will do some sunset chasing, maybe a ride to somewhere on the outskirts of town to lie on a blanket and look at the stars. Maybe I’ll happily chisel some moments for creative time and maybe even memorizing my monologues in time for my Thursday performance.
What moved me from melancholy to “hey, this isn’t so bad after all”?
It took me to remember who I am underneath the disappointment. I am not the disappointment nor am I the disappointer. I am just me. I sometimes see me better when I stare at my art – in this case a soul collage card, and pull out the trueness of who I am that things like disappointment briefly mask.
It is like Trent Zelazny says, “Life goes different ways for different people. Some people’s lives are formed by a cookie cutter and some are immediately tossed from the kitchen.”
How will you deal with disappointment today, tomorrow and next week?
Follow me on Twitter: @juliejordanscot
Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook (THANK YOU!)
© 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.
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 -