If your current writing project were a fall snack, what would it be?
That was the question for my writing group this morning. The choices were delightful. Pumpkin spice latte, apple cider donut, soup, candy corn, or burnt marshmallows. Each came with its own description.
My first choice was the apple cider donut: sweet but a little messy. That sounded about right. My writing can certainly be sweet and messy. We don’t need to talk about that right now, because I suddenly started to think about the soup, slowly simmering.
And the more I thought about it, the more I realized how perfectly it fit. The donut, it turns out, was just a side dish.
I love making soup. Not from a recipe, mind you. My soup usually begins with whatever I have on hand. Leftovers in the refrigerator, stock in the pantry, seasonings already in the cupboard, and an idea. Just a thought about where the flavors might lead.
A little of this, a pinch of that. Taste. Stir. Think. Maybe something else, because sometimes an unexpected ingredient makes all the difference.
My cooking used to drive my mother crazy.
So did my art when we worked on a project together.
Mom would have a recipe she wanted us to follow or a craft she had carefully planned. There was a sequence, a pattern, a picture, an expectation of what the finished product should taste or look like.
And then there was me.
I could never quite leave well enough alone.
I didn’t think her recipe was wrong or her pattern wasn’t good enough. I simply wondered what else might be possible.
My inner nose, my inner vision, seemed to know something more was waiting to be discovered. Another flavor, another color, another way of bringing the pieces together.
And I wanted to take my time discovering it.
I suppose I haven’t changed much.
My writing begins much like my soup. I gather what I have on hand. Memories, conversations, experiences, questions, and lessons learned along the way.
Some ingredients are sweet. Others are bitter. Some have been tucked away for years, waiting for the right moment to become useful. And some need a long time to soften.
The mixture holds faith and grief. Laughter, love, disappointment, hope, and a generous helping of grace.
Sometimes I begin with a clear idea of where a story is going. Other times, I have only a sentence, a memory, or a question that refuses to leave me alone.
I add a little here, rearrange something there, and occasionally discover that what I thought was the main ingredient was only the beginning. Much like this blog which began with a question.
And just as I do when I’m standing over a pot of soup, I have to resist the temptation to hurry.
Some things need time.
I’ve come to believe that this is true of more than cooking or writing.
We often begin with a picture of how life is supposed to turn out. We have our recipes, our patterns, our carefully imagined finished products.
And then life hands us ingredients we never expected.
Some we welcome.
Others we would gladly leave out.
But there they are.
I don’t believe every painful experience was given to us for some greater purpose. Some things are simply painful, and I would never pretend otherwise.
Still, I have discovered that even life’s bitter ingredients need not be the end of the story.
Add a pinch of hope, a dash of faith, and the bitter becomes transformed.
With time, patience, and grace, something different emerges.
Perhaps that’s what my mother never quite understood about my cooking and my art. I wasn’t trying to ruin the recipe or disregard the pattern.
I was curious.
I wanted to discover “the more” I felt beyond the moment.
And all these years later, I still do.
So, if you ask me what kind of fall snack my writing resembles, I’ll tell you it’s soup. Slowly simmering, made from whatever life has placed in my cupboard, seasoned with curiosity and grace.
I’m still stirring, still tasting, still discovering.
And the apple cider donut?
I’ll have that on the side.
Cathy D.
Leave a Reply