Do you remember strawberries?

a writing prompt for you

Welcome to Writing in Company. Each week I share some words and a writing prompt, meant to be jumping-off points for you to write about what matters. Use the prompts however you like—to journal, to draft thoughts for your own writing project, as meditation or prayer ideas, or for another creative endeavor. You can always look back through the archive for more ideas. Grab your pen and paper, and let your words loose on the page.

Strawberries are back.

Not the pale-inside, barely-sweet grocery store kind. I’m talking about the local, fresh-picked, oh-my-goodness kind.

I don’t even care that they are $2 more than last year. I’ll pay it, every week, until the season ends.

This week I ate strawberries plain, on a salad, on cereal, on ice cream, and on shortcake with Cool Whip. There’s a family recipe for strawberry pie that I’ll make soon—pie crust with lemon and almond-flavored sugar-milk, designed to show off the berries. (Edit: I added it to the comments below!)

On our walk today, my husband and I were remembering how he brought me fresh strawberries in the hospital when I was on bedrest, many years ago. (Crab legs too, but that’s a different memory/prompt.) They were in some kind of milkshake, but we can’t remember if he brought the ice cream from home, and then added the berries in my hospital room, or blended it up at home and brought it in a cooler. Either way, strawberries = love and grief, but mostly love.

Speaking of which, he just got up from his chair and said, “I’m going to cut up the last of the strawberries” and I gasped. I thought we were out! Wrapping this up now, for the sake of strawberries.

a writing prompt

If were sitting together in person, I would hand you a strawberry and invite you to make it your prompt.

Don’t eat it yet. First look. Notice. Smell. Then taste. Remember.

And then write.

If strawberries aren’t in season where you are, (or you are allergic), I am truly sorry. You can use something else that is in season, or write about strawberries anyway.

And if you have a strawberry recipe to share, please do!

“Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It'll be spring soon. And the orchards will be in blossom. And the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they'll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields... and eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

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Upcoming Faith & Grief workshop

I’m leading a Bereaved Mothers Writing Workshop this Saturday May 4th for Faith & Grief, a Dallas-based group that does such good work with and for grieving people. Find out more and register for my workshop or for any of the May-June series here: Light the Way. There will be online roundtables and workshops about Parenting While Grieving, Grieving Your Parent, Mindful Memory Keeping, and mine on Saturday for bereaved mothers.

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Photo by Raghavendra Mithare on Unsplash