Ask any of us who write, it’s usually because we need to read to understand our stories. –>click to tweet

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I love how Alia describes what we do here on Fridays, with our wild and wonderful flash mob of words:

On Fridays we write. And sometimes it goes all over the place and we let it. We get messy and real and sometimes we cry and sometimes we laugh but we get it done week after week. We show up and write free.

Five minutes on one prompt. We silence the critic and the audience, we make peace with our mistakes and our word tense that goes in and out when we type fast. We don’t overthink or edit or make a fuss. We just believe words spilled are worth something even if they come out like madness. Join us?

It’s never too late to link up. Also? The awesome Karen whipped up a Facebook page where we can connect and talk all things writing beyond just Fridays! Click here to join us.

Then come take the Five Minute Friday challenge – all the details for joining are over here.

This week I asked my friend, Tonia, if she wanted to share a Five Minute Guest Post with us. She’s one of the most generous encouragers I know in this online space. If you haven’t met her already, do yourself a favor – click here and go say hi to one of the friendlist and kindest Canadians online.

She’s celebrating a new blog redesign and giving away a copy of my book today. So yea, two fun reasons to go visit her. I’m sure there will be tea. There should always be tea.

Hands….

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GO

They’re the part of you where memories are made. Memories that seem to etch themselves in the depths of my being. And even though I’m forty-something and you’re sixty-beautiful I still find myself reaching for your hands and stroking the softness of the skin that stretches over long fingers – a testament to time and beauty.

I don’t remember the very first moment I felt their softness against my skin. Maybe that’s the way it was meant to be, that a daughter would always know her mother’s touch. Like your skin was made for mine and mine was made for yours and how we just know to the very marrow of our being that we fit – perfectly.

I remember those hands brushing tears from cheeks as I sat on your lap in the front seat of the car, daddy breaking sound barriers to get me and my bent-up arm to the hospital. How the strokes on my back kept time with the murmured language of motherhood and love.

I remember how you would smooth back the hair from my forehead after you were done with the scissors – how your fingers would touch that spot where my neck meets my shoulders as that one stray lock found it’s place behind my ear.

I remember the way those hands held me when you explained that you were going away and wouldn’t be back for a good, long while. How you gathered me close and I could feel hope trembling in your fingers as you touched my cheek, your eyes begging me to understand. “I’ll be back” they said – and I knew and you came.

That cold February day my eyes bright and slightly tired from a sleepless night before the big day. You licked the tip of your finger and with mom-spit cleaned around my eyes. “One last time” you said. I knew the dirt was imaginary but my nervous excitement could only be calmed by your touch.

I remember how labour kicked up fierce as my firstborn, all nine pounds, three ounces of her, pushed against me, my body bent as each contraction rippled hard across the swell of my belly. How your hands were there in the small of my back rubbing circles against the pain.

With that squalling infant in my arms you watched as all that echoes ancient unfolded – a daughter, for the first time, knew her mother’s touch.

There is so much about you that has settled deep in me but it’s your touch that keeps me centered in your love. It doesn’t matter how much time passes, or how many miles separate us – your touch brings me home every single time.

Your touch brings me home.

STOP


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