Writing Prompt #145: Writing about Food
How do you feed yourself?
Hi Friends,
As I mentioned in an earlier post, my husband and I agreed to foster a dog. Charlie—that’s her name—came to us after spending the first year of her life in a cage. Because she never got any exercise, she would go wild, running around whenever she was freed from said cage, as any of us would. She went so crazy once that she broke her hip and had to have surgery to remove the ball of her femur. She was six months old.
Even though we were planning to wait on a dog because of our travel schedule, I knew I had to get that dog out of the cage, so I agreed to foster her. My husband said he would only agree if I promised and swore up and down that I wouldn't keep her. I promised I would find her a good home—that part turned out to be true.
We had Charlie for about two weeks before deciding to keep her. Despite what my husband claims, it was a joint decision, even if he insists that she’s my dog (especially when she’s a pain in the ass).
But here’s the thing—this dog isn’t our style of beauty. She’s a golden doodle, but she looks like pure poodle. Our dogs in the past have been German shepherds, huskies, and chow-chows: sturdy mountain dogs who could run for miles in the snow.
I had always believed that a breed of dog with the word doodle in it felt more like a fashion accessory than a dog. Charlie goes to the hairdresser more often than I do—or at least she’s supposed to—and her haircuts cost double what mine do. Even our vet called her a “bougie dog”—he’s a veterinarian and his wife is a physician (my doctor, in fact—it’s a small town). How can you get any more bougie than a vet and a doctor? My dog, it seems, is more bougie than the bougiest among us.
When we first got Charlie, she was skinny and had sad eyes and a wonky gait because of her injury. When she runs at full speed, she only uses three legs. She’s incredibly needy, following us from room to room; she curls up on the bath mat while we shower. She’s terrible in the snow because huge balls cling to her fur, rendering it impossible for her to walk. She’s freezing all the time, so we bought her a vest—yes, it’s true, I now have a dog with a wardrobe. These things happen faster than you might imagine.
But also, Charlie is the nicest dog I have ever met—except for one thing: she murders small animals. In the past month, she has caught a vole, two ground squirrels, and a lizard—all from a three-legged chase. Everyone died except the lizard, which I was able to wrestle from her jaws before she bit down. By the time I got the other animals away from her, it was too late. She was chewing on them (vigorously) like she hoped to eat them for lunch. I was the meanie who stopped her from swallowing them whole.
I know this is normal dog behavior, and just because a dog wears a stylish down vest with a fur-lined hood, it doesn't mean she won’t give into her natural killer instincts. Charlie quickly learned not to chew my bunny slippers, but I can’t seem to remedy this bloodthirsty predilection for live animals. No amount of “Bad dog!” shouting will distract this curly haired blonde from chewing small creatures to death.
Certainly, I can’t have Charlie taking out the local wildlife, so I have thought about everything from attaching bells to her collar to making her wear a muzzle when we hike. If anyone has any other ideas, please leave them in the comments.
We have domesticated wild animals so that they might live in our houses as companions, our friends, a part of our family. We have bred them so they do not shed. But the wildness is still there, as it is inside all of us, no matter how many cute jackets we wear. Charlie is a dainty beast full of blood lust, and I can’t seem to do anything about that.
So I’ve been thinking about how the wildness of feeding ourselves has been domesticated. Rather than hunt or fish, most of us take a trip to the grocery store. We sometimes forage, as I wrote about last time. And many of us enjoy gardening, not just because it’s fun to watch things grow but because gardening offers us a more natural, a wilder way of feeding ourselves. As with Charlie the dog, connecting to this aspect of our natures can be more satisfying than a bowl of kibble or processed food that comes in a plastic box. The ways in which we feed ourselves can connect us to our wilder natures.
What You Will Need
A way to write
A place you won’t be bothered
A timer
The Exercise
Think about all the ways you have had to work for your food, whether that’s hunting or fishing, foraging or growing a garden. How do these things connect you to your wild nature?
There also may be more indirect ways you have labored for your food, such as working hard to cook an elaborate meal, and you can write about that as well.
Set your timer for five minutes and make a list of all the ways you have worked for your food, especially the ways that have connected you to your wilder self. If working in fiction, make this list for a character you’re working with. When your timer goes off, set it for another 15 minutes and write a scene (fiction or nonfiction) or a poem about something from your list. When you’re out of time again, have a look at what you’ve written. Is it the seed for a poem, essay, or story? If you feel comfortable, please share it with us here. I love reading the work that comes from these prompts!
Thank you for being here with me. If you find these writing prompts helpful, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. I’ll be offering a free, virtual writing workshop to paid subscribers Tuesday, September 9th on “Getting Unstuck in your Writing,” so stay tuned.
Also, I’ll be teaching a virtual workshop on “Writing through Grief” with Story Studio Chicago on Wednesday, July 16th, as part of their summer memoir series. More info can be found here.
And a special thank you to paying subscribers, who enable me to continue doing this work. And if you have any writer friends who might like to receive themed writing prompts, please share this post with them!
Until next time,
Suzanne
My books: Almost Somewhere, Bad Tourist, Animal Bodies
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