Five Star Friday's 160th Edition Is Brought to You By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

This week's Five Star Friday is brought to you by a chameleon, hate, how life travels on, a desire to Hulk Smash the patriarchy, gratitude, hope, a tombstone, being eight years old, Woodstock, running into one's past, love and space, the time before supper, a baby, breastfeeding, discomfort around strangers, a childhood, falling in love, real names policies, professional relationships, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

What is uttered from the heart alone, Will win the hearts of others to your own.
     — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Happy Friday!

"801" from LaurieWrites:

Where you can escape when you're four months old I don't exactly know, but clearly I have always been a good sitter on tables and listener to problems and general information.

These years later, years too after I've stepped through either door, I know every board and floor and wall and stair her father constructed. I understand their place in the world like I have an idea of what they know as mine. I know who was there and I know where they went and I know what they said.

I will never let it go, not really, even the parts that I work so hard, so consistently, to forget.

"Tender Green Shoots of Hope" from perilsofdivorcedpauline

"Falling In Circles" from Black Hockey Jesus

"The Room for Misunderstanding" from Slouching Past 40:

I could have been a better mother at that moment of reckoning. But there's also this: the boy was able to verbalize, that, on a Saturday in July of 2011, he hated me.

Sometimes I hated my own mother so fiercely that I thought the feeling, a caged animal scratching and clawing for release, might kill me. I pressed my child's weight hard against the door of the cage and trembled as the beast kept hurtling itself towards unforgiving metal, and towards me on the other side.

"The One About Me Not Being Able to Breastfeed" from Moosh In Indy

"Possibly The Craziest Thing You'll Read All Week" from Nothing But Bonfires

"Vivian, 8" from Spin Me I Pulsate:

Viv, I hold all these moments. They are all one singular place, not a file cabinet but more of a snake eating itself, a continual meaning, that dimension they still can't find where today and yesterday and tomorrow all live. This is who you are to me, still. You are all those moments and memories. All those times make you, my daughter, my eldest.

"Rough Boys On the Playground" from ChildWild

"Five Minute Wait" by Tulpen at Indie Ink

"The Days Pass" from Toddler Planet:

The love keeps me going, and I remember what a gift each day is, as I take the rare step outside and catch a glimpse of the butterflies we raised this spring — or their grandchildren — or the gravel pit Grandpa made just for us — or the azaleas, the playset, the shovels, the toys, the detrius of a live well-lived. And I take a deep breath, remembering to enjoy it. Remembering that life is made of moments, and I am so lucky that I get to live such wonderful, wonderful moments all smooshed up together in this beautiful life that exists between the sleeps.

"U2. Me, Too. We, Two." from Momma May Be Mad

"Professional Relationships and Social Media" from Off the Hoof at Mule Design

"'Real Names' Policies Are an Abuse of Power" from Danah Boyd | Apophenia:

The people who most heavily rely on pseudonyms in online spaces are those who are most marginalized by systems of power. "Real names" policies aren’t empowering; they’re an authoritarian assertion of power over vulnerable people.

"You Get What You Pay For" from Miss Doxie

"Woodstock '94" from House of Prince

"Magic Hour" from Girl's Gone Child:

Because this is their time, their place, and watching them find themselves in the crumbs and spokes of future artifacts is why I love being their parent. It's why I can't wait to meet their sisters. It's why I watch them and write here and follow their eyes as they think and learn and explore without caring how big the mess. This is their moment. His hour before he has to turn off his train, retire his cars to their parking structure. Her hour before the mustache comes off and the marker tattoos and the orange paint in her hair.

"Next" from Eleni Zoe

"Inventory" from Hilarity In Shoes

"The Shema, the Mezuzah, and Mitch" from The Eagle & Child:

I was a bit awkward through this whole exchange. I've never known how to deal with such outgoing, energetic and uninhibited people. I also didn’t know exactly what was going on with him saying the shema. It all happened so fast. One minute he's cussing, the next he's saying the shema in Hebrew. Was he praying? The way he put his hand on my shoulder and closed his eyes, speaking Hebrew in the middle of the Summerland farmer's market crowd, he certainly seemed sincere.

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Comments

[amyturnsharp]

Great ones. xo

[thordora]

I don't blog for 2 months, and when I do I end up here? AWESOME. :D

Much reading when I get home.