Welcome to the first Five Minute Friday link-up of August 2023!
If you’re new to this community, a warm welcome to you. Each week we gather around a single word prompt, set a timer for five minutes, and write with abandon.
Learn more about the link-up and how it works here.
This week’s FMF writing prompt is: WATCH
Setting my timer for five minutes, and . . . GO.Â
I was spoiled to grow up on Lake Michigan. I have a deep adoration for it. I also have a deep respect for it.
Every year, whole bodies are swallowed by its mass — on rough days, but also calm. Hidden currents pull, foundations drop, waves pummel, depths call.
I am acutely aware of its abilities, but I’m still drawn to it. Still enamored by it. So when we unloaded all of our bags, towels, coolers, and other beach paraphernalia on my daughter’s 18th birthday last week and the first raindrops started to fall before our behinds hit the chairs, I looked at the sky and announced, “I’m running in to swim before the storm comes!”
I only enjoyed about four minutes before I was flagged in to pack up our bags and head home.
A handful of days later, this past Sunday, I looked at the calendar and saw it was empty except for church. The sun was shining, the air was warm.
“Let’s go to the beach!” I said to my daughter.
We jumped in the car and drove off.
In the water, she said, “Let’s go to the buoy.”
“No,” I said.
“I’m gonna go. There’s a sandbar over there,” she pointed.
The waves were present, but not huge. I knew she would be able to touch the ground all the way out without her head going under the water. And yet, even though she’s eighteen now, I couldn’t help but watch her bob all the way out there, memorizing her exact location until she turned and waved, triumphant.
The truth is, even if she had gone under, if her head had slipped beneath the waves, there was little I would’ve been able to do about it.
Next week we’ll drop her off at college for the first time. I will have to walk away, no longer able to watch whether she’s safe. I will have to walk away and entrust her to the only One who no longer promises to watch, but is mighty to save.
STOP.
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REGISTRATION NOW OPEN
September 2023
I’m so looking forward to hosting another Writing Accountability Group next month!
We’ll meet eight times on Zoom in September to write together in real time. Who’s in?
LEARN MORE AND SAVE YOUR SPOT HERE
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Join the link-up with your own five-minute freewrite, then visit your link-up neighbor to read their post and leave an encouraging comment:
I wore a watch upon my wrist,
so proud that it was mine,
not knowing that it would persist
in making me a slave of time,
but it looked so very cool,
a Rolex imitation,
and I thought it was a tool
to identify exalted station,
but really it was definition
of a man so schedule-bound
that it was a true perdition
just to be around
a dude a-twitching in his seat
with impatient tapping feet.
Four minutes with an interrupt from The Strawberry Beast, our Bullmastiff.
Lovely post. I can agree with all of it. Except our beach is the Atlantic Ocean.
This week it was New Smyrna beach with waves upon us and our younger 14 year old son and 13 year old nephew. There is pressure in watching kids in a free and big ocean! Our 17 year old has one more year of high school and living at home before he embarks on the next stage of living. I pray your transitions go well! <3 JENNIFER
As beautiful as the lake and bittersweet too is the letting go of a child and trusting God that He won’t let go. Ever. You’ve expressed this transition beautifully and I will pray for you.
Watching out for our kids. It is hard to let go. When my daughter and 16 year old granddaughter visited us in Florida this winter, we visited Coco Beach – they went body surfing while I sat on the beach. I didn’t take my eyes off them. Old habits.
We will always be watching for our kids as we pray, right?
Blessings
Janis
Great post, Kate! Indeed, trusting the One who is mighty to save. Thank you so much for sharing and giving us a place to land. 😉
As I watch my son Cain with intellectual disabilities grow into a man.You can’t tell he has intellectual disabilities because they are not on the outside of his body but the inside of his body.He Graduate from High School. They said he doesn’t need a Group Home any more. He lives in a redisten Hope with three other guys
Now I watch him grow into a man. I will watch him turn 27 in December