It’s Friday, which means it’s time for another Meet Me At This Moment for Five Minute Friday post! I spend the last hour of Thursday chatting it up with a group of authentic and inspiring Five Minute Friday bloggers on Twitter (#FiveMinuteFriday #fmfparty). One minute past midnight EST Friday, Lisa-Jo Baker gives us a single word prompt and we all write a blog post centered around that word. We write for five minutes, and five minutes only! In the words of Lisa, this is “unscripted. unedited. real.” You meet me at this moment in time…my thoughts and opinions, my joys and sorrows, my dilemmas and dreams. And I receive one of the greatest gifts ever…a regular outlet for processing and expressing my thoughts without constantly editing myself. This is my life, my perspective, unfiltered.

The word of the week is WELCOME. 

Ready. Set. GO!

My daughter dances. We’re at a new studio, so I’m still getting acclimated. Each week I meet and greet the few people I know, and find my secret place to watch through the windows. All in that secret space – my daughter’s class, the class across the way with middle school girls, and the class across the other way with high school dancers. The high school girls move me. The sassy song playing repeatedly, dancers in the dark, twirling and swirling, down on the floor, arms up, down, and all around. These girls are awesome, and I want to dance like them.

When I was a girl, I wanted to be a ballerina. In my adult years, I’ve daydreamed of being a back-up dancer for a singer. Fierce and powerful, without hesitating a single step. I want to be like that. Maybe it’s a mixture of beautiful ballerina and fierce backup dancer that I want to be?

These girls dancing. I watch them every week. The little ones behind me, the big ones in front of me.

This week, the high school girls came out in the hall, out of the normal routine. Alone with their phones for a bit, then talking.

My baby on the floor took one of their water bottles and started playing. They gathered around, in fact, hovered around. A girl I noticed had been quiet prior was now close by the baby. She told me she nannied for four children this past summer. Quiet girl with much behind those eyes, I had identified earlier as maybe being like myself, and now this love for the baby so evident, bright and shining. Then all the girls, loving on the baby. Just as they were. Just as I was. Just as the baby was. All quietly giggling, watching, admiring this baby, those sweet toes, those precious little hands pushing on the bottle making snapping and crackling noises and baby smiling up at the girls. I felt so welcome among these girls 20 years younger than me. Minimal words necessary. We were one. There is hope in this generation, camaraderie. Welcome.

Stop.

They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion; they will rejoice in the bounty of the Lord — the grain, the new wine and the olive oil, the young of the flocks and herds. They will be like a well-watered garden, and they will sorrow no more. Then young women will dance and be glad, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow. I will satisfy the priests with abundance, and my people will be filled with my bounty,” declares the Lord.  Jeremiah 31: 12-14

Amy