Post #48 – Women’s Memoirs, Writing Prompt – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
By Promptly Portland
What do Snow Peas and Writing Prompts Have to Do With Each Other?
For most people, seeing a pot of snow peas would mean a quick, crunchy snack or a stir fry dinner. For me, looking at the snow pea plants makes me contemplate a writing prompt. But first, a bit about this lovely plant.
Snow peas are easy to grow, even in Portland. I like to start mine indoors by soaking the seeds (actually dried peas) in warm chamomile tea for two days. Then I plant them in pots in the sunniest area of the backyard. Since this is a rental property, I don’t want to invest too much in garden plantings. However, a pot can always be moved to the next place and snow peas seem quite content to grow in pots, unlike some other vegetables.
The snow pea may be one of the earliest cultivated plants and it’s possible that first efforts to grow it were along the current Thailand-Burma border, thousands of years ago. I don’t know how they were cooked or eaten back then, but this year I’ve been cutting some of the slightly sweet-tasting tendrils and adding them both to salads and soups. These plants are so prolific that I can afford to use some of the plant in ways other than to produce the flat snow pea itself.
What’s with those tendrils? The plants can grow quite tall but the stems are weak, unable to hold themselves upright. Instead, small, flexible tendrils emerge along the stem and grab hold of whatever is nearby. And when I say “grab hold” I don’t mean slightly wind around an object. These tendrils twist and turn and knot themselves tightly so that winds, or snow falls (snow peas can make it through unexpected spring snows), or birds nibbling on the leaves can’t dislodge the tendril, keeping the plant secure.
If you put wooden or metal stakes in the ground, the plants will happily support themselves. If you don’t get around to adding supports and don’t have a fence or other upright nearby, the snow pea plants manage to use each other to provide some mutual support simply by extending their tendrils to other tendrils.
In today’s writing prompt, I wonder if you would consider your own tendrils or the tendrils of friends and family.
500 Words (or more): Memoir Writing Prompt
1. How do you support yourself emotionally so that the winds of life don’t blow you down or uproot you? Do you have personal tendrils that you have extended over the years and wrapped around one or more close friends or family members? In what ways have your tendrils make a firm connection? Write 500 words (or more) about one of these relationships and the way it has supported you in a time of need. What would happen if that support suddenly wasn’t there? Do you have other places for your tendrils to extend should you need to?
2. Are you the wooden or metal stake that someone else’s tendrils can wrap around? How do you maintain your own self so that these tendrils don’t choke you? How do you have a symbiotic relationship — providing support but maintaining your own identity?
Until next time,
Promptly Portland
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