Liz Rasley

Five Minute Friday – Fall

So! Here we go again, another Five Minute Friday, this time on a Sunday night.

We’re going with whatever works.

So, this time I was an overachiever and wrote for longer than five minutes, and the time limit is a big part of the rules of Five Minute Friday, so this time, sharing with you all, but not linking up, as it doesn’t seem to be fair. I’ve found that for me, writing is like the running I did in my teenage years–sometimes, I just needed to keep running, farther and longer than I had planned, not because of any calorie or health-driven reason, but simply because I needed the mental space, that the running helped clear my head.  Writing most days, is not unlike the running of my youth.  So hence my over-five-minutes Friday entry.

For a reminder-this Five Minute Friday thing is a weekly writing “game”  from my bloggy friend Lisa-Jo Baker, who blogs (and writes heart-breakingly, beautiful words and stories) at http://lisajobaker.com/

So, here’s the challenge, should you accept it: you write for 5 minutes with freedom like you have no fear or shame.  Or propensity for run-on sentences, like I do.  Pretend those don’t exist or don’t matter. (Ha!) And then you have to be brave (or at least pretend to be) and link up to her blog. Encouraging the writer who links up before you is part of the deal, too.  This last rule is crucial, as we all need to encourage others. Why encourage another writer? Because at one point or another in our lives, we all need encouraging too.

Each week is a new word, a new thought starter, and you have 5 minutes to write….and are you ready?

go-

Fall

Fall-a season, a word, a noun, and mostly, an action we’d rather forget.

A fall from grace, a trip, slip and a fall that eludes that we are anything but dignified, smart, and reminds us constantly, obnoxious in it’s pride, that we are not in control.

We’re not ever in control, we tend to forget this.  Falling frequently, mostly stumbling and tripping on my own human feet and inadequacies tends to help me remember. There’s yet to be a sidewalk crack in my path that I haven’t tripped over.

Our frequent falls, fails, mistakes, missteps, errors of judgement and timing tell us something we’d rather not articulate: we’re not in control at all.  That control, of anything it seems, is really just an illusion.  And a really funny one, a fun house distorted mirror, and seems especially cruel if you have small children underfoot.

Our falls remind us that we’re human.  Which is not a bad thing.  Perhaps that’s why we’re so embarrassed of them when they happen, it lets us know there are greater things than us our there, it connects us to our roots, the very essence of who we are: messy, fumbly, awkward and desperately in need of each other. Perhaps that’s also why, when we get older, we tend to be more embarrassed of a fall; we are adults, supposed to hold it all together. I’m sure I’m not the only one that has an older relative that is shameful of a slip.  But the falls are a gift—a reminder that we’re not robots, perfect or complete, and the greatest joys and sorrows is to live our life to the fullest in our temporary skins and emotions.

But the thing to remember is this-all of our mistakes lead us to the greatest of falls: falling on our knees.