Last Saturday, I drove down to another writing workshop in Mt. Angel, Oregon, at the Shalom Prayer Center. It was wonderful! Pat Love, the instructor, gave us a lot of wonderful writing prompts, and asked thought-provoking questions in order to encourage us to think about those small things in our lives that we could use as fuel for our writing. One of our assignments ws to make a list of all the things in our refrigerators, including stuffs in the freezer. Her accompanying questions were:
- What snapshots are triggered from this list?
- What do you need?
- What do you want?
- What can you learn from the stuff in your fridge?
Write about the answers to any of these questions.
So I made a quick list of some of da stuffs in my fridge and came up with this:
Ketchup
Kulolo
Kamaboko
Mayonnaise
Apples
Poi
Pickle relish
Raspberry jam
Lettuce
Lemons
Dashi
Yoshida’s Sweet and Sour Sauce
Milk
Guava jelly
Zippy’s chili
Science experiments (heh heh heh)
And this is what I wrote for the assignment. Pat only gave us about ten minutes to do it.
“In my fridge, there is a lot of stuff that helps me feel connected to the ‘āina [homeland] and my childhood growing up in Hawai‘i. But along with those things are connections to my present life, including the red Oregon raspberry jam given to me by a friend. Past and present linked in my fridge. Flavors of childhood, flavors of adulthood. Which do I choose? Which is my comfort food when I am sick or feeling needy?
“Past and present, flavors linking me to my childhood like a bridge. A small bag of poi, shunned by my mainland friends, but to me, carrying flavors of the sun-drenched land where I was born and raised. I taste it, and I am back there, a keiki o ka ‘āina [child of the homeland], gloriously ti-leaf sliding down a muddy hillside in Mānoa Valley, listening to the shouts of laughter from my friends. I taste the raspberry jam, and I am here in Oregon, an adult with one foot on the mainland and the other on ku‘u one hānau, the sands of my birth.”
I have never even thought to look at the “stuff” in my fridge like that! Very, very interesting….but scarey! (in MY fridge anyway!)
Hey! I came on over from socknitters and you;re a writer too! I love the idea of stories from small things, ad I love how you used your list of fridge stuff!
What do you write?
I write about everything! I can’t not. Mostly about growing up in Hawai`i and my knitting stuff… oh, observations about life in general… and what it’s like when I feel like a foreigner here on the mainland. Guess no subject is off-limits except for the private stuff that stays in my journals and nowhere else!
Great stuff. I enjoy seeing your knitting, but I really enjoy when you write stories.
If you can find inspiration like dat in yo’icebox LOL you can find inspiration for writing anywhere.
I look in my ICEBOX & I’m inspired to clean & throw out stuff. BUMBYE doe. LOL
This is awesome! Now I have to go dig around in my fridge with this perspective in mind. I know there is Kim Chi of various kinds. LOL Fat chance for local food though. Yes, you inspire me.
I loved reading that. It colored a picture and told a story. Hmmm whats in my fridge? Salad, rice milk, tahini. You would think I am a hippy. Yet I sit here eating a mountain of rice pilled up on a overcooked piece of spam.