5 minutes on remembering

Linking up with the Gypsy Mama this morning, a few days late, to keep the writing part of my brain from getting rusty.  Every week she cues us with a subject, to write unedited for five minutes flat, to "just write" without worrying about whether or not it's "just right."

(If you're thinking about sharpening your skills again, join us some Friday ... or any day ... )

This week's cueword:  remembering ...


GO


I'm remembering, alright, but I'm remembering anew.

When I was 18 months old (my mother told me later, dating it by how pregnant she remembers being with my brother), I was dropped off in a basement childcare arrangement while my mother worshipped with some neighbors up above.  There were toys and kind ladies, I remember.  But what haunted me for decades was the stairs.

I remember climbing those stairs, crying (loudly, my mother said) in the dark, hearing my mother's voice soaring with the others, unreachable.

The stairs went on and on; I never reached the top.  I suppose one of the kind ladies took me in hand.  All I remember is the climbing and the crying.  For years, all I knew was that I wanted Mommy and she wouldn't come.

Rejection.  Abandonment.

I wrote about it in college for an "earliest memory" assignment.  I got an A.

Later, much later, I asked my mom about it.  I could have saved myself so much hurt by asking sooner.  She'd heard me and ached with me.  She'd tried, sometimes, to have me with her, but I was wiggly and restless.

Her love for me spoke volumes.  I heard it in her eyes, her voice.  The hurts were healed.

So now, when I remember, I see more than just the stairs.  I see my mother hearing me, distracted from the singing, wondering what to do with that beloved child, what's best ....

STOP




p.s.  Mom, I love you.  And now that I've got "one of those" I understand, better.  Thanks for being patient with me while you waited.  You're still doing a great job.

5 minutes on ordinary

 




[Linking up with the gypsy mama today for a little writing exercise again.  Today's topic:  ordinary.  Here goes - five minutes of uncut writing, right or not.....]



Ordinary?  I've got 5 minutes, and ordinary is all around me.

The sunshine pouring in the window is an ordinary blessing.  The children quiet for now - that's ordinary enough.  But this morning, when all was chaos and that was ordinary too, it was ordinary love that carried us through.  Imperfect, fighting and fearful, but ordinary enough that the fear passes and the fight's forgiven and we walk on, together still, loving anyway.

Ordinary refreshes, in its own way - although I usually think of solitude and silence and beauty and philosophy and prayer when I think of refreshing.  But the everyday is what links it all together, beads strung on a wire, all random and messy and beautiful just the same.  The whiny teething toddler, the call to a friend, the anticipation of a night at the pottery studio, creating, the sisters with their claws out, the sisters loving and kind, the husband holding gentle, the rainbow glints from a diamond promise, the easy click of keys, the flowers opening, the bulbs buried hopeful, the sheets on a line smelling faintly of stinkbug ....

One bonny bead after another, ordinary, everyday, the stuff of life; its bread.

[time's up]

5 minutes on friends

  

[parameters:  every Friday, the gypsy mama supplies a topic and we write unedited for five minutes and then publish.  voila!  today's topic:  friends]

They come in all shapes and sizes, my friends.  All personality types and all types of interests, values, and economic status.  They vary in fashion sense and common sense, intelligence and humor.  

This is good.  They fill my gaps, strengthen my weaknesses, challenge my assumptions, need my encouragement.  We're co-dependent, you might say, in the healthy community sense of the word.  

It sours sometimes.  I envy her and she judges me and we get tangled up in who we're not instead of who we're meant to be.  But iron sharpens iron and if we don't lose our temper under pressure we'll be sharpened by the grinding, strengthened by the differences.

My friends, my sisters .....

[time's up]

5 minutes on growing

[the parameters:  gypsymama provides the topic; we write unedited for five minutes and stop no matter what when it is finished.  today's topic:  growing]

I'm thinking of that caterpillar again.  The one that, this morning, before we were up, cracked open the chrysalis and crawled into a new life.  I'm wondering, again, if its old caterpillar self was bewildered at the bright wet burden unfolding behind.  Did it rejoice in the color, the delicate unfurling proboscis it boasted, antennae fingering fresh air?

Can a caterpillar puzzle?

Can it count loss?  Did it dread the future, dragging those wings it wouldn't know could soar?  So slowly they dried.  Did they lighten, then, to spread for the first, unfolding finest velvety black and vermilion and cobalt?

I never saw it leave the leaf; the rain started and we left it, a windowscreen to shield it from the torrent.

[time's up.  is it cheating to add a picture now?  hope not].

5 minutes on joy

[the parameters:  Gypsy Mama supplies the topic, writers type an unedited five minutes, add button, & publish.  enjoy!]

::

Joy, huh?

Joy is my middle name, the ironic birthright, since joy is what I often lack and seldom think I give.  I'm getting glimpses, though.

I've always looked around me for the happy things, the little beauties.  One Thousand Gifts gave me a structure for my habit, and disciplining it is helping, dosing me with joy, with slow-down, with how-to-thank-for-sharp-things.

So joy is choosing.  Whatever is right, whatever is true, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - to find these traits in everything, and think on them.  The ugly is so obvious, sometimes.  The admirable takes some searching, but always worth the hunt.

Joy when the baby whines - that he can, that he's here, that he's not always whining.

Joy when the husband's late - that he works, that he called, that it's home he's coming to, and not away.

Joy when the daughters fight - that they love, deep down, that they listen when I admonish, that they care enough to fight.

Joy when friends are silent - that they're there, still, for me to touch, that they forgive, that we forget and move on.

Joy when supper burns and my temper flies away again - that we have food, that God gives grace, that life goes on and tomorrow is a new day, a fresh start, a clean slate, "with no mistakes written on it yet."

....the five minutes fled.