Last Call: "Blossom" Starts Tomorrow!
Plus Mother's Day reflections & recommendations
This 3-week prompt-based writing group begins TOMORROW, May 12. The prompts are a collection from my new book, Fierce Encouragement: 201 Writing Prompts for Staying Grounded in Fragile Times.
Check out the Q&A I did with
wherein I reveal that a) sometimes I hate writing prompts and b) my writing practice is not what you might think….
You do not have to purchase the book to join the group! But if you’d like to purchase the book, I will be eternally grateful and excited for you to have not 10 but 201 writing prompts at your fingertips!
On Mother’s Day
Yesterday, I called my mom. She answered, Oh, that's telepathy. I was just dreaming about you. What were you dreaming? You and I were deciding where to eat breakfast, she said. Do you want to go back to sleep so that we can finish deciding? No! I want to talk to you!
On this outrageously beautiful morning, my girl called me. I was sitting on the sunporch drinking coffee, watching birds, listening to the chimes, basking in the breeze. She was at a Jewish writers retreat. Time slipped on its axis again, etching a psalm into the space between us, old and long as our line of mothers and daughters. Mwah mwah mwah.
Our oldest met us at the wetlands, where we walked and looked at the baby geese, the red-winged blackbirds, the ladybugs, and the dragonflies.
My son arrived while I was out back. I didn't hear him come in, and when I walked into the kitchen to see him standing there, looking older than even a few weeks ago, I let out a little scream. It's you! I pressed my face against his scruffy cheek and gave him a squeeze. Lucky, lucky.
Motherhood is a bewildering and breathtaking blessing. A mystery made of a million moments with nothing even remotely resembling a manual. Harrowing and hilarious, humbling and healing. Impossible and infinite. Funny and fearsome. Primal and precious and practical. Surprising and sacred. It's everything you dreamed and nothing like you thought. It is self-forgiveness on repeat and grace undercover.
I give thanks for all of it.
10/10 Recommend
Here are some things I’ve read and watched this past week:
– an evocative new personal essay from one of my favorite writers (who happens to be my daughter, but believe me, this isn’t just maternal bias).
– Lifeform by Jenny Slate, which Kirkus Reviews accurately described as “delightfully offbeat and unexpectedly moving.”
– two wonderful documentaries (thanks to JetBlue), both of which have heaps to do with motherhood in their own ways: Judy Blume Forever and Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story.