Five Star Friday's 226th Edition Is Brought to You By Francis Ellen Watkins Harper

This week's Five Star Friday is brought to you by educating the young about gay rights, realizing that problems are often much simpler than they seem, missing someone, the experience of time with a newborn, defining one's vocation, and Francis Ellen Watkins Harper:

There is material among us for the broadest comedies and the deepest tragedies, but, besides money and leisure, it needs patience, perseverance, courage, and the hand of an artist to weave it into the literature of the country.

     — Francis Ellen Watkins Harper

Happy Friday!

"It Starts At Home" from The Martha Project:

It starts at home. It starts with you.

"Boots" from Finslippy:

It occurred to me later on, Small Boots is every imaginary problem I torture myself with. Every dilemma I'm sure is insoluble, but could be fixed, if I dedicate some energy to focusing on solutions instead of the problem. And really, we have no big problems. We need a few feet more space, a few hours in the week.

"Dear" from Breed 'Em and Weep:

Dear, I am doing my darndest to explain the big hole in my chest where my heart used to be. This does not go over well, in general. I may stop trying to explain, because all it does is worry others. But I like to think you would understand. I'm trying to grow it back, but a heart doesn't grow as fast as hair or fingernails. Even plucked eyebrows grow back at a faster rate, and that's really saying something.

"Turning Again" from Journey Mama:

Time is funny, and all of life is some kind of cycle. The biggest, most langorous of course is the life cycle, the one that Isaac is just now embarking on. A slow, slow turning. We barely feel the spin, it's as ponderous as the earth on its axis.

"Writer (blogger)" by Sarah Gilbert at Stealing Time Magazine:

Today I also stood in my kindergartener's classroom as his teacher, who is also a mother, told me about reading my essay in the latest magazine and about reading Cheryl Strayed's book Wild, and she started crying when she said, "we all need to read stories because it's so hard and they make us feel not alone," and I said "yes!" and we stood there crying and talking about her teenage daughters for the next half-hour while my boys played with construction toys and we were very, very much not alone.

Please come back and share good writing with us over the coming week to be featured on the next Five Star Friday. If you have read a really good piece on someone else's weblog, submit it by Thursday at midnight CST to have it featured on Five Star Friday.

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Five Star Friday's 225th Edition Is Brought to You By Clarissa Pinkola Estés

This week's Five Star Friday is brought to you by self-acceptance, the reality of parenting a special needs child, uncertainty, dads as whole people, a step-father's hard decisions, the relationship between privacy and authenticity, metastatic cancer, weight prejudice, and Clarissa Pinkola Estés:

Sometimes the one who is running from the Life/Death/Life nature insists on thinking of love as a boon only. Yet love in its fullest form is a series of deaths and rebirths. We let go of one phase, one aspect of love, and enter another. Passion dies and is brought back. Pain is chased away and surfaces another time. To love means to embrace and at the same time to withstand many endings, and many many beginnings- all in the same relationship.

     — Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run with the Wolves

Happy Friday!

"Mushroom Bacon Breakfast Pizza" from Cheeky Kitchen:

Having once been the sort of person that thought I had all the answers, I asked him the question I ask myself, "do you like it? Does walking the tightrope of the unknown excite you in some way?"

To which my telephone companion replied, "Oh, not in the moment. But afterwards? Afterwards I'm so glad."

"So You're Feeling Too Fat to Be Photographed..." from My Friend Teresa Photography:

So here is the harsh truth y'all. Listen good. Our vanity is no longer enough of a reason to avoid the camera. Life doesn't wait until you "get thin" enough to capture it. Life is happening... it is happening right now and the only moment we are guaranteed is the one we are living.

"You've Come A Long Way, Dads. But Has Advertising Noticed?" from Mom-101:

The notion of committed, engaged fatherhood is here to stay, and I was so privileged to have a front seat to witness so much of it this week. It might not be everywhere just yet, but in enough places that I think the ad industry should take note.

"The Thing About Moms of Special Kids..." from Herding Cats:

We’re damned if we do, damned if we don’t. We can’t complain, then we’re ungrateful. We can’t question authorities, because then we’re being uppity. We can’t show that we’re stressed because we might then be a bad parent. We can’t ask for more help because then we’re being unreasonably demanding.

We can’t win.

"Cinnamon or Powdered Donuts" by Ron Mattocks at DadCentric:

Driving away, I roll down the windows so Allie and Avery can wave goodbye to their Aunt and Gaga one last time. We're hardly to the end of the street when a heavy silence settles in. Soon deep wet sniffles penetrate the quiet void, as do the pangs of guilt slicing through my gut. There's an irony in that the purpose of our trip was so I could attend a conference centered on guys who blog about being a father, and yet, here I was taking the girls away from theirs.

"Random Thoughts: Authenticity and Privacy Are Not Mutually Exclusive" from Chookooloonks:

...I do believe that authenticity and privacy are not mutually exclusive.

"The Hardest Conversation" by Lisa Bonchek Adams at The Huffington Post Canada:

The funny thing is how much better I felt after we talked. The conversation was the hardest one I've had. The topics are gut-wrenching. But shining the light on them, on this disease, on what happens next, is the only way I know to cope, to help, to keep going.

"The Last Socially-Acceptable Prejudice: Weight Discrimination" from Beauty and the Bypass:

Nobody is comfortable talking about weight prejudice. People are either too scared to talk about their experiences, or they fear retribution for discussing the experiences they’ve had with weight prejudices in the workplace.

Please come back and share good writing with us over the coming week to be featured on the next Five Star Friday. If you have read a really good piece on someone else's weblog, submit it by Thursday at midnight CST to have it featured on Five Star Friday.

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Five Star Friday's 224th Edition Is Brought to You By Ken Kesey

This week's Five Star Friday is brought to you by the death of a mother, bearing witness, the wedding of a dear friend, the love of a son, homosexuality and a close-minded church, the happy consequence of being honest about being gay, a second time around, being fifteen, and Ken Kesey:


photo credit: Todd Mecklem

The answer is never the answer. What’s really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you’ll always be seeking. I’ve never seen anybody really find the answer. They think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.

     — "Ken Kesey, The Art of Fiction No. 136" by Robert Faggen, in The Paris Review No. 130 (Spring 1994)

Happy Friday!

"Sylvia Steinhardt: September 2, 1922 – January 17, 2013" from The Squashed Bologna:

I had told you it was okay to go, had whispered in your ear that I knew how tired you were, how in need of rest and cessation of pain, of peace. Had given you my permission to go.

I wanted to take it all back, to beg you to stay.

But it was too late.

"I bet you’re wondering about The Middle School Columnist’s tan." from Ann's Rants:

My step-sister Amy got to come too, which isn't fair because she didn't have to go to Hebrew school or even have a Bat Mitzvah, but she makes me laugh and stops me from being so bored. I don't know if you know this but you can get bored anywhere, even if palm trees and lying out are available and especially if you are in a land of no cute boys.

"I Want to Remember" from Walking On My Hands:

I am not here to give testimony to a god but instead, to the way the world crouches between beauty and despair, each a tragic partner to the other.

"The Book of Love" from Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef:

This really has nothing to do with food. Or gluten. Or anything I write here, normally. But I had to write it. I've been changed by that evening. I find myself, in my late 40s, drifting into a new period of my life.

I want my only anchor now to be love.

"Nine Years Old" from Mommy's Martini:

Nine is nothing if not competitive. But it is also, quite beautifully, able to be happy when someone else wins a contest. Any contest at at all.

Even one over whose lovie is oldest.

"I Got Saved At Jesus Camp" from Life with Roozle:

My [parents] picked me up Saturday and I read my bible the whole way home. The bible that my dad had found for me on the shelf when we read it was a requirement for the camp. It said, "To Ray, on your birthday, from your father." It had never been opened. Except to read that little note on a December day in 1986.

Now it was highlighted, underlined, and post-its stuck out the side. When I decide to do something, I do it. Especially when that something is Getting Saved.

"The Lonely Business of Finishing A Book, Redux" from Jane Devin:

I didn't feel the need to share my news with the barista at Starbucks when he opened up shop at 5:00 this morning. I didn't feel exhilarated and I didn't get teary-eyed. I didn't write emails, or start ginning up my future hopes. Instead, I considered the breakfast special at Frankie's and then decided that coffee was enough.

"The Man In the Beige Windbreaker" by Didactic Pirate at DadCentric:

The man simply sat back and said, "I just wanted to tell everyone that I'm happy. I'm happy that I get to come here every week and say that I'm gay. I'm very content with that. So thank you, all of you."

I learned later that the man had been coming to this group every Thursday night for years. He told his wife he was going to a friend's house to play cards. And instead, he came to this room. He came here, sat in a metal folding chair, existed silently as a gay man for two hours, and then he went home.

Please come back and share good writing with us over the coming week to be featured on the next Five Star Friday. If you have read a really good piece on someone else's weblog, submit it by Thursday at midnight CST to have it featured on Five Star Friday.

And because you are a fan of finding good new writing on the internet:

• Subscribe — Subscribe to this website to keep up with us every week.
• Show your pride — Take one of our badges for your website and spread the word.