This is my second attempt at Five Minute Friday, a widely followed blog-writing prompt from Lisa Joy Baker. The deal as I understand it – take her prompt (today – beautiful), write five unedited minutes, post. So here we go:
When I think of beautiful, I think of four girls in my life, girls who have known ugliness and cruelty and neglect that no one should ever know. Girls who were born beautiful, destined for lives of normal happiness and sadness and normal ups and downs, girls whose “normal” was ripped away from them by the very people who should have treasured them. They were left fractured in mind and spirit and body, but they were still beautiful.
And so these girls have spent the last several years struggling , fighting and clawing their way back through tunnels of darkness towards light and truth and wholeness, and that is beautiful.
Countless people have poured into them, poured security and acceptance and wisdom and truth and safety and love, most of all love, and that is beautiful.
They are getting better, at least on most days, and on a good day they are wise and funny and gorgeous and accepting. They are beautiful.
As my sweet Southern friend Susan would say, Oh. My. Lanta. (Possible spelling-for-drama Oh. Mylanta. I grew up in Alaska, I’m wingin’ it.)
Seriously. It is not often (yet) that I feel myself tempted to say “Back in my day, things were different. You kids these days……”
But can we be real? (This here is already pretty real, seein’ as how I’m using conjunctions to start sentences and such. My blog. My grammar.)
Before we get real, perhaps I should warn you. It’s hot here in the Northwest, and by hot I mean I’m feeling the need to fan myself on the front porch in front of an ice block, because we don’t have AC and it’s either the ice block and a fan or injure all of my peoples who seem to be picking their worst behaviors for display in these days of Unpleasant Hotness. Bad choices, people, they are making Bad Choices……
So I MIGHT be a little bit cranky. Maybe.
Back to the getting real. Cause kids these days (cue tremulous and crotchety old voice in your head now) are flat out spoiled. My eldest just told me I needed to buy the small people new fluoride rinse, to which I lovingly and patientlyreplied in my most nurturing voice, “Oh, precious, no, there are three other bottles of three other flavors available to you under the sink.”
Oh, no. Apparently the pink one is the only “tolerable” flavor for their delicate little mouths. Seriously?? These kids need a dose of good ol’ Mr. Yuk Mouth! Remember him? Back from the day when our medicine all tasted BAD so we wouldn’t poison ourselves with it? Remember? Back when there weren’t eleventy-three flavor boosters available at the pharmacy, and a premium option to have it formulated as a icy slush??? (That could be a hallucination, I’m hot, but I swear it’s available.)
Here’s some old school terror for you, you grape/cherry/banana/magicberry-loving little ones……
yeah…..that’ll scare you into never wanting to go to the Dr. EVER. Or clean anything, EVER, cause of the scary Yuk Mouth.
Remember, back when the only oral health rinse we had was Listerine, (registered, trademarked, don’t-sue-me-its-a-lovely-product-though-I-do-prefer-Fresh-Mint) which came in only one flavor, and that proud flavor was “Light Brown Blister and Pain?”
Back in the day when toothbrushes came in either scratchy, poky or straw, and not in derivations of cartoon characters, scented handles and rotating/singing/timing/teaching you Ukrainian poetry?
Seriously, go brush your teeth. Mamaw has to go out on the porch and fan herself.
Tara Talks Too Much 