it’s no wonder

I’m reporting back from my first semester one-week residency, and I don’t think it will surprise anyone that I’m having a fabulous time in Writing School!

I thought I’d share one of my favorite quick ten-minute writing prompts from the workshop portion of the week, shared by my instructor Nadia Owusu, that she picked up from fellow author Kiese Laymon. (Highly recommend both of their books!) I think there are friends reading who might love this prompt as much as I do, and I challenge you to take ten minutes to do it!

The prompt:

Can you remember one sentence that was said to you by another person, or that you said to yourself, that made you feel horrible, maybe even among the worst feelings of your life? Write that sentence down. Now revise it so that it’s affirming, or so that it opens up new possibilities. Riff or journal about it.

~

And here is mine:

 

It’s no wonder you suck at being a mom – you got kicked out of grad school.

 

You left a PhD program that was depleting your soul, and made the most of it by writing a Master’s thesis to be proud of. It’s no wonder that you are rising to the occasion of mothering so beautifully with your newborn son.

It’s a wonder you could believe you got kicked out of grad school. You kicked grad school’s ass on top of which you are kicking ass at being a mom.

I wonder how you could have gotten to the point of believing him tell you lies about yourself like that you got kicked out of grad school. It’s a wonder how you’ve bloomed as a mother after sucking in so much of the sewage he spewed.

When grad school lost its wonder you made the move to end it with grace, then turned your wonder towards the baby boy in your arms.

When grad school lost its wonder you kicked it to the curb, let being a mom suck you in.

When grad school lost its wonder you kicked it out, then kicked out the man who insulted you.

When grad school lost its wonder you bloomed into a mother.

It’s no wonder you bloomed.

3 comments to it’s no wonder

Leave a Reply

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>