So, here’s the skinny: every Friday for over a year hundreds of people join a kind of writing flash mob over here.
For five minutes flat. No extreme editing; no worrying about perfect grammar, font, or punctuation.
Unscripted. Unedited. Real. All on the same prompt that I post here at 1 minute past midnight EST ever Friday.
Write and see what comes out. There’s no right or wrong.
It’s a #FiveMinuteFriday flash mob! <—click to tweet this!
1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..
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One of my favorites from last weeks was this beauty by Amy at Sharing a Cuppa.
OK, are you ready? Please give me your best five minutes on:
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Path…
:
GO
I would follow those fat, little calves anywhere.
It’s hot with a perfect breeze and the rare ocassion where we have family in town. Zoe trips and skips along the side walk ahead of me. Both knees are still scraped from yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that.
But nothing slows her down.
Blonde curls beckoning, bobbing up and down – one beautifully perfect thing about DC humidity.
We all chase her. The boys at a safe pace because they know how apt she is to fall down. Uneven surfaces will bring her back to her scabbed knees. But we can’t help but chase, each trying our best to win that waterfall giggle.
She runs and the path winds before us and opens up on a playground dwarfed by high rise office buildings. The boring gray splashed with astroturf and jungle gyms. We run and climb and laugh and the sky is still much brighter than 9pm should be. Until she digs her bottle out of my bag and that blankie.
The one Sara gave her. The one that arrived in the mail with the note that said African print should always trump something in pink.
My girl she lays down on the edge of the path and wraps Sara’s words around her. A bottle of milk and a wide-eyed mama by her side.
STOP
{Subscribers, you can just click here to come over and play along}
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Whew! This is the second time I have attempted 5 minute Fridays….but I absolutely love it. Challenging and fun!! Thanks for the opportunity to join you this week!
Your words are so easy to SEE, Lisa-Jo. (And you brought a tear to my eye. For some reason I’ve been thinking of Sara a lot this week.)
Oh, the magic of a blanket. :) Great post!
Love the picture you can paint in just 5 minutes with these words of yours! Thanks for hosting us here on Fridays – love the community you have created.
What a joy to be here and ponder our path! Love your words – they stir within my soul. Great group of gals so willing to share and uplift. Love Fridays!!
This is my first time linking up to this. I wrote this yesterday quickly and I wasn’t even go to publish it because first I cursed and second it was a bit of a rant, but I remembered you do this fun lil party every friday and I couldn’t resist, your theme word worked in well. I hope thats ok that it was written yesterday? Thank you for hosting the link up and your lil one is so sweet and cute. I loved your blurb about her.
What a beautiful post! You have such a way with words…
Thanks for hosting the Five-Minute Fridays–I look forward to it every week! ;) (Forgot to add that to my comment under your post, where you asked us to share why we read The Gypsy Mama; I LOVE reading all you have to say but I enjoy the Five-minute fridays too…where you give us a chance to share our hearts with you–with each other!)
So beautiful. I just love how you love her.
it is such a delight to read about how much joy you find with your girl…love how you paint pictures with your words…blessings, Lisa-Jo :)
P.S. Re: your post about your site: I come here for your words, and I don’t notice much anything else.
I came across the tiny scrap of blanket that survived all the love that a little boy inflicted on it in his toddler years when we were packing up to move. I held it gently. He will be forty next month. He had sweet little blond curls too. Oh – hold tightly to these moments Lisa-Jo.
I was looking at old pictures to use for my post (back when there were three and not four). My youngest is now the age of my youngest in the picture. I sure to wish I could keep those fat, little calves. The time goes by too quickly.
I’m thankful for the new world my children give me as they lead me down their paths.
Lisa-Jo, thank you so much for your beautiful and unmerited encouragement by way of that shout-out this morning. :)
What I love about your blog I can’t quite pin down yet — but it’s got something to do with what I think you must be like as a person. The things you write are honest, but somehow with the kind of openness of heart that makes a reader (at least this one) feel like she’s being welcomed in rather than eavesdropping. There’s also an absence of something here that makes me think you would not abide cruelty in words from or towards anyone. That may seem like a small thing, but it really isn’t. Not in today’s world.
So… please keep writing from that heart. :) I see the welcome of Christ here. And please also be glad I don’t still live in Virginia, or else I might have sought out your doorstep on the pretense of a playdate “for the little girls” (when really I meant for the big ones :D)!
LOVE this! Thank you!!!
When oh when can Auntie Kristen babysit her?
Love you, friend. Have a great weekend.
I love the image of following your daughters curls. So adorable.
And this week your word Path was so crammed full of stuff I had to take a step back. I couldn’t limit my thoughts about paths in my life to 5 minutes, so I sort of changed directions and wrote a snippet of a story of someone on a path.
I love your 5MF’s. They are just the best idea ever. Thanks so much for doing it.
I went literal this time around: http://freshbrewedwriter.blogspot.com/2012/06/5-minute-friday-sunday-edition.html Come see my moose photo though :)
OOps! Seems I missed PATH – but wrote it today anyway: http://thisnthat-everydaylifeobservations.blogspot.gr/2012/06/5-minute-friday-path.html
Guess we’re on different time zones, so by the time I come to do this Friday’s new topic, it might be Saturday for me!