Five Minute Friday - Long

I’ve been away too long again (P.S. I wrote that before the prompt came out!). But this community – it never fails to reach out and embrace – even when one has been away. I’m so grateful for this space; and for the women that I’ve met here; with whom I’m building relationships.

For all the talk about how online is incomplete, I have yet to feel that here in this space. Except for missing the joy of being actually together chatting on couches or sitting across tables with sweet tea or coffee, there is nothing truly incomplete about this friendships and this space.

On Fridays a bunch of brave writers gather here to all spend five collective minutes writing on a single prompt. It’s a great way to catch your breath at the end of a long week. This blessed, beautiful place where we open our hearts and let words and tears and the inner workings of our lives bleed and flow and dance across the virtual pages. Yes, this community opens wide and invites you in to share. Come and visit and read. You will be blessed.

This week: Long 

Go

There’s nothing like a good laugh full of irony and this prompt might be it. I’ve been away from my blog for a while. Away from my words. To be honest, even in the still, quiet times where it’s just me and a real live page – nothing digital – there has been an abundance of white space.

And while I love white space – I need, desire, crave white space in all iterations in my life – the dearth of words has been hard to bear.

It’s not for anything dreadful and traumatic. I’ve been there before. This is not it. It is a comfortable, if somewhat guilty, silence with a lingering feeling of obligations not met. But there has been nothing on my heart that will come out in words.

I have certainly not stilled my thoughts – those run rampant and wild; percolating into effortless bubbles. I feel like a three year-old with a wand and a bucket of soap on a breezy spring day, flinging shimmering cascades of effervescence into the air, only to have them vanish in a moment. 

Creatively, I have not been in silence. My thoughts, feelings, and ideas have been spilling out in my art.

Smile with me.

I have always wanted my art to spill out but have never felt I had anything worthy of spilling. And now – a joyful profusion comes out like a dam has burst. Where has this come from?

And curiously, why can’t they both pour out at the same time?

My friends and community gather round and encourage me. Where would I be without these voices that anchor me, connect me, and point me back to truth?

I’ve heard some snort derisively at the idea that there are seasons – laugh at the idea of the ebb and flow of this thing we call life and the ability to capture the essence of living with our words and ideas. Laugh away. Clichés are sometimes birthed in truth and oftentimes perpetuate themselves because they endure.

So this is my quiet season.

It feels too long. But let’s face it. I’ve been away longer than a few weeks before. Maybe you have too. Maybe you’ve struggled with the idea that your voice has gone silent for a time.

Honor the quiet.

This is what I’m learning. The lack of tangible words is not a lack of words altogether. Sometimes, it is a growing time. Learning to be more precise and intentional with what we do say.

Words matter. They always will. But I want to say the right ones. Ones that have weight, and meaning, and integrity, and truth.

Even if it is a long time between posts.

Stop

How to Join
Want to know about how Five Minute Friday got started, and how to participate? All the details are here. No editing or second guessing. 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 the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community.

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