What Hunger Knows

Reclaiming appetite, art, and the messy beauty of becoming

As a girl, I was taught to shrink, to smooth my edges, soften my voice, suppress the growl of my belly. I was taught that admitting to hunger, of any kind, made me weak.

Too much. Unfeminine. Ungrateful.

Whether it’s hunger for food, for truth, for touch, for space, or for making something bold and entirely my own, appetite was painted as a kind of failure. It was something to manage, or something to hide.

But I have an appetite. A wild one.

I crave the deepest version of my voice, the risk that quickens my pulse, the work that terrifies and compels me in equal measure. I crave art that makes me grow new roots and shed old skins.

And I want to feed the parts of me that aren't here to be polite, or small, or easy to love.

So I’m foraging every day this month for a different edible plant. Miner’s lettuce, common dandelion, mountain pink currants, tender greens pushing through the soil with quiet insistence. These plants, often called weeds, find the broken ground, the overlooked cracks, and they rise.

Wild plants remind me: I am not here to be cultivated. I am not here to be ornamental. I am here to survive, to thrive, and to grow on my own terms.

I was born and raised in a cult. For my entire childhood and adolescence, I was trained to disconnect from my body, to distrust my own instincts, and to dissociate from the desires inside of me. I learned to obey, to perform, and to abandon myself in service of a doctrine. Reclaiming appetite has meant reconstructing how I connect to myself—how I listen to my body, how I welcome pleasure, how I allow wonder and risk to live in the same room.

Appetite as Compass

As an artist, I am befriending my appetite, and that means I am learning to feed it wisely. Not with validation or safety, but with risk, with honest work, and with the brave thing I haven’t yet said out loud. Appetite is not greed, it’s a compass. It shows me what I need to stay alive. It reveals paths that scare me, ones that matter more than I was taught.

When I honor my hunger, I become more emotionally available—to myself and to those I love. I’m less brittle, less performative, more attuned and more honest. Letting myself want without shame opens something tender in me. I’m learning that the fuller I allow myself to be, the more space I have to truly meet others.

Foraging helps me practice this every day. It invites me to slow down, to observe with tenderness, to receive without guilt. It reminds me that what’s been named unwanted may still be healing, and that wildness has it’s own way of knowing.

Outgrowing Predictability

I’m trying to outgrow the girl who knew how to keep the peace, who needed to be tolerated, not feared.

That girl was useful, but she cannot write this next book, and she cannot lead this next act of my life. She couldn’t fully feel. She was too busy surviving the effects of her childhood abuse, too busy reading the room, shrinking to fit, translating danger into obedience.

And then, almost without pause, she became a mother. Young. Still half-vanished. Her body given over to service, her voice tangled in other people’s needs. There wasn’t time to ask what she wanted. Wanting had never been the point.

Motherhood shaped me. It tethered me to the world. But it also taught me how to disappear more completely, how to ignore pain until I could no longer hear it.

The more I heal, the more I want. And the more I want, the more I can feel. And the more I feel, the more I can offer real presence, not performance.

Risk is not comfortable, but courage grows in community. I do not do this alone. I write in the company of shared circles, around fires, in quiet messages and blinking cursors. We remind each other what we’re made of. We name what we were taught to silence. We ask better questions.

We chase meaning through the underbrush, with nothing but a notebook and unreasonable hope. We gut the quiet and make something beautiful out of the mess. We write the hard thing, even if it takes seventeen tries.

Because our stories matter. And our hunger does too.

This is a season for appetite. For gathering what nourishes. For letting the wild things grow.

P.S. I’d love to hear what you’re learning to feed, and what you’re no longer willing to starve. Let me know in the comments or a quiet reply. I’m listening.

Current Offerings

Artist’s Way Summer Cohort - Tomorrow, I’m gathering a small circle for The Artist’s Way—twelve weeks of deep listening, tiny risks, and steady, messy making. We'll meet at the edge of the solstice and walk the season together. Two simple tools: Morning Pages (daily) and Artist Dates (weekly). Twelve weeks. No grades. No gold stars. Just you, your voice, and a community of fellow travelers. We start with a welcome session tomorrow afternoon, June 7 at 1:00 PT on Zoom. Included with a paid subscription. We meet the first Saturday of each month on Zoom (June, July, August, September) and we check in with each other here weekly, by responding to thoughtful questions, and to each other.

You don’t need permission to make art. You just need a way in. No matter how messy, you’re welcome here. Bring your tenderness. Bring your fire. I’ll walk you through the rest.

Poetry for Pleasure - June 29 - 9:30-4:30 at the Maloof Foundation for the Arts and Crafts. Make your own poetry playlist as you create a unique leather-bound book to return to, again and again. Click here for more information, or to register. Or respond to this email to request a scholarship application.