{this moment}

Joining Soulemama today for {This Moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

"Connection" 5 Minute Friday

5 minutes of writing, no editing, no grammar checks...

Word for today....Connect

GO...

connected at the core
at the roots

and in the spaces between we still reach like branches to one another.

As children do to a mother or father

I  recoil like a fern at the thought of being so obviously vulnerable
and deep in need of connection.
Of love.
Still it's true.

It takes courage to connect.
Love the big the little and the middling in another.
 In myself.

It takes courage to disarm and be vulnerable and true to the person I really am inside.
Bring her outside.
Let her dance.

Connection can make me afraid

What if I'm not what you want me to be?
What if I am not enough?

What if I am not worth connecting with?

See with connection we trade a little of ourselves.

But I'll tell you this.

I'll put my strongest arguments aside
so I might look into your eyes
and really see them.

See your pain and joy
the child inside
your memories
and the story that writes them.

Connection can't be rushed or forced it is a slow intermingling of roots beneath soft earth

Knowing that the earth feeds us both.

We have the same mother
The same Father.

We are sisters
We are brothers.

Backwards...

Joining Gypsy Mama today for 5 minute Friday
Got five minutes? Let’s write. Let’s write in shades of real and brave and unscripted.
Let’s just write and not worry if it’s just right or not.


1. Write for 5 minutes flat for pure unedited love of the written word.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Get a little crazy with encouragement for the five minuter who linked up before you.

Go...


Sometimes it feels like I'm moving forward only find I'm really going backwards.

Backwards.
To take the hand of the child who stared at her feet as she walked past the big kids on the swings.

Backwards. To put her hand up for the girl who never tried so that she would never be the one to fail.

Backwards. To whisper hard won secrets of a thirty something in the ear of the child with her new baby, alone, raw, terrified of a love she could not contain.

In silent moments, I sometimes find myself staring out of the window.
Seeking the road beyond. Trying to outrun my past.

Among a flock of circling birds, I see myself dance as if I were free.
 Free as if I'd been born feathered.
Out there. Just beyond grasp.
Where a fledgling takes it's tentative first flight.
There between wing beats and endless blue,
I embrace the child I once was.

Unrealized dreams float silently to the ground like pollen
Planting new seeds.
Seeds of a new life. A garden of my own.

The useless regrets that clench and cling to the ache
That mire me in the mud of memories undone
Are released as I bend down to embrace that girl.
 Wipe away her tears.

Maybe I have to take those few steps backwards.
Remind her that there was something to look forward to.
Tell her tomorrow would be a good place to get to.
Small healings. These backward steps.
That bring the balm of this day to the brokenness of the past.

Sometimes backwards might just be going forwards.

Stop.

...
I really love 5 minute Fridays! For a busy Mama it is a wonderful way to practice writing in short bursts without over thinking your words. I also love the way it forces me to write without editing or analyzing as I write. The process of "just getting it down" quick as a flash sort of opens the unconscious. I read back what I have written and it is like opening a package of thought, ideas, feelings and memories that find their voice only through this "stream of consciousness" kind of writing.

Weekending

Joining Amanda at Habit of Being for Weekending 

***
Saturday was all about making Boo's dreams come true... This means a visit to the Parrot Zoo.

Bujana spent nearly the whole time in the walk in aviary where there was every manner of bird you can imagine.

The birds were very beautiful and friendly. The girls soon found that if they put the millet seed on their shoulders they would hop on quite happily.

Boo fell in love with a yellow ring necked parakeet. We are now looking into the ins and outs of having an out door aviary, as Boo has been talking about nothing other than birds for the last few months. I so want to encourage her passion.

The evening ended perfectly as we snuggled up on the sofa to watch the three British Olympic gold medals of the day! The girls have been really inspired by the Olympics, especially Jessica Ennis. They keep doing running races outside in the garden and awarding each other pretend medals :)

At the Parrot Zoo, Fina spent a lot of time on the out door play equipment pretending to be an Olympic athlete. I had to say things like. "Wow! This has never been attempted before"
and "The rest of the field is closing in on her, can she retain her Olympic title?"
and, of course, finally "Yes! She's done it again, Seraphina Kopliku crosses the line first in record time!"
:)


***

Sunday we caught the last of the days sunlight and went for a wander.
 

While the girls played Frisbee with Daddy, Nola and I went into the woods.
Nola found a hut made of sticks.


***
There was a little Nola sized tree stump in the hut.  It was very inviting and Mama was only a little disappointed that there was not one her size in there too :)


***
We sung "We're going on a Bear Hunt" and eventually got to Nola's favourite part... The squelchy, squerchy mud of course!

Nola is fascinated with mud and puddles. It wasn't long before she had parked herself squarely in one particularly squelchy, squerchy one :)


*** ***
Seraphina found a "treasure" at the Parrot Zoo... A bright green parakeet tail feather!
She has been holding it tight ever since:)

*** ***
 Then suddenly, in good old British Summer time tradition, the heavens opened. We were drenched within moments. The girls love rain and even though the thunder rumbled above they couldn't help but do their happy rain dance!

Warm baths all round before bed!

Some thoughts on writing...

 ...and

A Few Words to a Young Writer: by Ursula K. le Guin

***

Socrates said, "The misuse of language induces evil in the soul." He wasn't talking about grammar. To misuse language is to use it the way politicians and advertisers do, for profit, without taking responsibility for what the words mean. Language used as a means to get power or make money goes wrong: it lies. Language used as an end in itself, to sing a poem or tell a story, goes right, goes towards the truth.

A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.

 

this moment

Joining Soulemama today for "This Moment" {this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

5 minute Friday (Here)

No extreme editing; no worrying about perfect grammar, font, or punctuation.

Unscripted. Unedited. Real. 

Writing for 5 minutes only.

Go....

Here

Here.

We are.

I am.

Here is all I've got!

What am I to do with here?

Lot's of here's turn into a life. A "there"

"There"  seems so big and
outside of me.

"Here" seems so small and
inside me.

Almost insignificant.

Almost.

But it is the small here that make the big life. "there"

How shall I spend mine?

How do I spend mine?

Trying to keep inspired by online images and words?

Till that still, small voice says,

enough,

time to leave all this noise now, go back to those silent
Dog eared poetry and prayer books.

Music.

And then the kind of living that sieves dirt through fingers.

Real stuff.

Like cooking. There's

Preparation, heating the oven, choosing those few good, healthy ingredients.

Then there's the Mixing, Warming, Serving.

Each moment a mouthful.

Nourishing real life.