A free write exercise. Everyone welcome! <–Click to Tweet this
Where a beautiful crowd spends five minutes all writing on the same topic and then sharing ’em over here.
How to Join:
Want to know how Five Minute Friday got started and how to participate? All the details are here.
Featured Five Minute Friday:
And every week I’ll pick a post that caught my eye and share it down there in my side bar – see where it says “Featured Five Minute Friday”? Yea -that could be you! Hop on over and visit some folk who make fireworks in just five minutes. They inspire me.
Now, set your timer, clear your head, for five minutes of free writing without worrying about getting it right.
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..
OK, are you ready? Please give us your best five minutes on:::
Fall…
GO
You boys are so beautiful to me. I know you don’t like it when I call you that. But you are. Those muscles on skinny legs and shoulders. How does a seven-year-old pack such a six pack into all that sinew?
You are beautiful and brand new still and I can smell it in your hair that’s got that summer and chlorine flavor to it. I’m scared so much of the time of the innocent parts of you getting broken. Where you’re fearless, I’m afraid. Where you leap, I want to build fences. Where you climb I want to strap you down. Where you launch yourselves off ramps and beds and diving boards I want to find a way to hold this heart in my hands and not in my throat.
Sometimes – and sometimes more than that – you show up at our bedside in your angry birds tighty whities because of bad dreams and tuck your long and gangly legs under the covers between us. It’s crowded. I push you over, tell you to move up. I complain and grumble and sleep so badly because of it and still there you are all smiles in the morning.
When did this happen?
When did you graduate from babies?
It’s a long way down when I see how far you’ve got.
You teach me the kind of courage that’s terrifying to learn.
Hold my hand, let’s cross the road together now.
STOP
OK, show us what you got! {Subscribers, you can just click here to come over and play along}
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Such a sweet post. I look at my son (3 1/2) and wonder where the time has gone. They grow up so fast, don’t they?
Thanks for a lovely link up once again!!!
how come the links aren’t working?
Sorry Karen – I made a behind the scenes glitch. But they should be up and running now. Try again?
I know that feeling, that heart in your throat, he’s not going to make it feeling! My almost-three-year-old trained me well from the time he could walk. He’s got this, mama. And he usually does. I let him do things I never would have dreamed letting my older daughter do at the same age. Boys. They’ll be the death of us all!
I’m sending my turning-three-next-week girl to PreK in August. I don’t want to…I want to keep her safe in my arms, but it’s time for her to fly. To sometimes-fall. And to learn to get up again, too. Love this…happy Friday to you, friend! :)
It all changes so fast. They grow like weeds, and these days will soon be memories we sit and treasure together when they’re half grown. Love your mama-heart, it’s really beautiful.
We just got a trampoline and I’m regularly terrified that they will fall. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that when I was writing! But I totally feel your pain here. Wanted to let you know I’ve got the link up for the kids’ edition up at http://desperatehomeschoolers.com/2013/06/06/five-minute-friday-kids-edition-2-fall/ What do your kids think about joining us? We’d love to see them!
Tina @ Mommynificent
Some days I just want to stop time. I’ve already got one that is married and the rest not too far behind. Beautiful post!
Sometimes I just want a ginormous gerbal ball to stuff my boys in – it’s so hard to let me bump, scrap and bruise through life – but I have to let them go – give them independence with training wheels – but you describe so much of what I miss – that clean hair smell snuggled up to you sleeping – mid-night shuffles to the side of the bed, wanting to crawl in – on, those are the sweet days!
Lisa Jo –
I don’t have a blog, but this post inspired me to take about 5 (I think it took me just under 9) to brain(really HEART) dump here at home. So blessed. I completely get this post and am so glad you share. Also, I think we’re semi-neighbors. I’m raising two boys -11 and 8- and a 4-yr-old princess in Fairfax, VA. Stay dry this weekend! Or not. :-)
Hey Neighbor!
Love when we can’t help but write. For ourselves. I think that’s the best kind, isn’t it? And here’s to less rain and more time outside this weekend!
Ah, Lisa Jo, you have a way with words of uncovering the heart, “scared so much of the time at the innocent parts of you getting broken. Where you’re fearless, I’m afraid. Where you leap, I want to build fences. . . .etc.” This is an amazing description of my mama emotions with my own boys. Somehow I don’t think those emotions will ever go away for me but they will fearlessly lead, leap, climb, etc in different ways as they grow up. I am much in need of grace in every moment on this boy mama journey. Thanks for sharing!
How blessed we are who have these times with our children; there are many who are so oppressed that they cannot enjoy this season with them.
Darn … The new pop up window for inLinkz won’t show entirely in my iPhone (in Safari or Chrome) so I’m not able to post the link to my post. I can see the cancel button button but the button to submit is off the screen. :(
Loved this one! Lovely Lisa-Jo!
-Heather
Love this line the most:
“It’s a long way down when I see how far you’ve got.”
The more we gain, the more we see we have to lose. Yet it’s still worth it all. Philippians 3:8
I’m ready to enjoy more of “that summer and chlorine flavor” here. Thanks for the prompt!
GO:
Have you ever had one of those moments when you’re rushing around, thinking and doing a million different things, and you start to fall. Not, emotionally, but physically, for real, start to fall? Your shoe snags on the carpet, your ankle turns the wrong way, you didn’t see the dog laying in your path as you carried a load of laundry and you start to fall…
Now, in this case – you don’t actually fall, you catch yourself right before you truly lose it — but here’s the interesting piece — Before the fall, life was a jumble, filled with a million and one things to do, think, feel, and suddenly you trip and your heart starts racing, your mind blanks, and your focus narrows to simply breathing and the only clear thought is “That could have been so much worse…”
Somehow that almost fall is like wiping the heart and mind clear and bringing us back into focus about what’s real. We’re alive, we’re well, we’re not broken and we didn’t even step on the dog! After a fall or almost fall, I find it difficult to go back to the million and one dramas and discover, sometimes, it just good to breathe…
There is nothing like a little boy. I cannot imagine my life without my blond power house. Last year, he jumped off a school desk and injured both feet. Luckily these boys are much more resilient than us! I still cringe whenever he jumps. Many days with my heart in my throat here.
Excellent prose as always, Lisa. That’s for the prompt. I enjoyed it very much. Have a blessed day!
As a mom who children have literally graduated — girl you are making me cry. Such sweet precious moments built in to those babies of baby-hood!!!
I can’t get the link up to work I hope me putting it here will be ok. I keep trying and where it asks to pick image it just keeps cycling no matter what image I pick it won’t add it.
My post is http://feistyfam.blogspot.com/2013/06/fall-oh-heck-i-fell.html
love this linkup
i already feel this way about my 8.5 month old, and from what i gather, it doesn’t get any easier. your sweet, gentle reminders always stir my soul, Lisa-Jo. so, so blessed to be back in this place with you again.
Thank you, Lisa Jo, for hosting!
This is my first FMF hop! I love your blog and your linking friends…what beautiful words.
I look fwd to clicking to more of the bloggers who’ve linked.
God bless,
Chris
my first FMF! thanks !
Hey Katherine,
Welcome to FMF! I loved your post. God does like to prune and pruning in my world has been a very good thing. I love Autumn and all the colors. And here in the desert, we don’t always see those beautiful colors. Thanks for posting the pic too. Please continue to post. It is always fun to meet others and visit their blogs.
I just finished writing on Fall for 5 minute Friday. It took me longer to add the link then to write, so I was a little behind my 5 minutes. I’m a newbie. So check out my post!
Lovely writing
Oh my word, Lisa-Jo. Every part of this resonates with my mama heart.
Yes…the courage… Blessings to you, and your family :)
Fall
And I am imagining the fall. Me free in space able to turn any which way up or down or around, free in the fall. free fall. Some people could think that fall is not good. But the way I imagine it fall is good as long as it is used to get you back up better than ever! In the fall, all ceases except the fall and expectation of landing hard and getting hurt. what if you landed hard and after a period of recuperation – of What just happened? – you got up and started over. Started over but with the experience of the fall and why you fell and you can live a better way after the fall.
Stop
Enjoyed the topic this week. There were so many ways you could go with it.
http://retiredruth.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/five-minute-friday-fall/
“When did this happen? When did you graduate from babies?”
Yes. And then you turn around and they’re wearing a cap and gown. As moms, we never stop wondering: When did this happen? :)
Lisa Jo, I just wanted to say hi and thanks–this is my first five-minute Friday (I came here from Kris Camealy’s site), and it was super fun. The word “fall” is so multivalent, there are a lot of possibilities. Thanks so much for hosting and for giving me a chance to play with words today. :)
Hi Lisa-Jo~I finally took the challenge and did one of your Five Minute Fridays. I don’t know how you can get all that feeling and thought into five minutes like you did with your post. That was so special and sweet about your boys!! I miss those days. Looking forward to trying this again next Friday! I really want to get away from the perfectionism I strive for. It ties me up in knots and takes hours to write!
Blessings,
Janis
I seriously want to join in!!
Oh, dearheart, whenever I start that blog I keep thinking about, I will definitely join in. Of course, I might also have to join this millenium and get a twitter account if I do. And a phone that was born after the 90s.
But I digress.
I love your blog. It’s the one blog I make sure to read when I see the notification in my inbox. A couple others I like seem to have nothing but sponsored posts for products anymore, and there are others that are beautiful, but sometimes just too deep for a dreary day. I love knowing that I can some days I can read yours and laugh til I weep. I like that you take the beauty and the sorrow and do your best to keep it real:
“When did this happen?
When did you graduate from being babies?”
So true. My oldest is truly a big kid, and my newest and youngest is just a slip over half a year. I look at the younger one, and love having a baby again, but it’s twinged with knowing that his babyhood is going too fast, and soon he’ll be as big as his brother is now. I really think we got ripped off on the whole baby thing — they start walking about a year too soon. I’d like the first year to take two years to develop, so you can cuddle longer, and I’d like those sassy toddler years to take about six months! ;) Unfortunately, we grow as much as adults and parents (hopefully) as much as they do during those toddler years, I don’t think the Good Lord is going to let us skip it.
Alright, it’s in the wee hours, and I’m rambling.
Either way, perfect post — you free write like this?! Really?? That poetic and grammatically correct — English class must have been a breeze for you! Thank you for sharing your talent and your heart with us. Reading your blog makes me want to really start writing again.
Anyway, thanks for your five minutes. Have a great weekend!
Just truly beautiful. When my boys hug me they have to bend down…it seems to happen over night. Love your writing!
Great word! I’m inspired to play along today!
Mary, momma to many
Those feelings are all so real and so hard! Thank you!
http://bellesbazaar-heather.blogspot.com/2013/10/fall-five-minute-post.html