Penny Post #42: The Zookeeper

Entering the Lion's Den.

I’m thrilled to announce that I have accepted a position as Junior Zookeeper at Homeland’s Lion Habitat Ranch and Exhibit. This may come as a surprise to most considering the fact that I’ve recently begun a quest to burgeon my writing career. Yet after months of intense interviews, submissions/re-submissions, and final negotiations I’ve been offered a job that I simply can’t pass up! 

For the first few months, I will be undergoing a rigorous training process which includes working with the zoo population directly. Despite my lack of education and experience, the team is hopeful that I will be able to acclimate quickly. Responsibilities include daily care, weighing, preparing diets, cleaning, training, and exhibit maintenance with a special focus on some of the most needy of creatures: our Asiatic Lion family. 

Asiatic Lions are bred and cared for in most worldwide zoos. They are an endangered species whose living wild relatives survive only in India. They form loose prides, though the males and females seldom cohabitate. They prefer large prey species as nourishment, with domestic cattle a particular favorite. It will be my job to feed these feisty creatures. Everyday I will walk into the lion’s den, lock the cage door, collect bloody specimen from our feeding bucket, invite onlookers to watch, and (drum roll please) feed these creatures. It is my ardent hope that I am able to walk out of that cage everyday intact, ready to enter again tomorrow. 

Feeding times are especially lively for these lions, yet one lion in particular (whom I had the pleasure of meeting the other day) boasts a hearty savagery that enlivens the crowd. His name is Trying to Become a Writer and Make a Living (we call him INSANITY for short) and he is one hell of a beast.  

I owe a special thanks to Annie Dillard, famed zookeeper and lion tamer, and Alexa Juanita Jordan, author of the dazzling Wild Cozy Free, for their exceptional references. 

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Writing is a wild animal - the king of my jungle - and I’ve been hired by the Universe to tame it. Responsibilities include daily care, morning pages, revisions, reading, writing, typing up morning pages, more revisions, sharing doubts with other lion-tamers, crumpling up pages, reading Glennon Doyle, scheduling Substack posts, watching Liz Gilbert’s Ted Talk, more revisions, and, of course: releasing my lion back into the wild with dangers I can’t protect it from.

“SIMBA!” I scream.

You might be wondering how I could possibly compare my elected profession (writing, no apparent life or death involvement) to one that actively and consistently steps into a lion’s den and asks to remain breathing?

I’ll explain. 

1. It is literally my job as a writer to use metaphors (the shiniest tool in my toolbox!), and this is no different. Although my metaphor here is a massive predator with fangs, it exists to explain the impossibility of taming an equally wild creature like that of writing. 

2. Sometimes writing feels as if dangling a big, fat, juicy piece of steak in front of a wild, hungry lion and asking it to behave. 

Wild animals’ behavior is not something you can typically predict. At times, writing will rush in and an entire essay will be born without any interruption. At times, as soon as the next day, I will sit at my desk for hours willing anything to emerge from the cage of my mind, yet all I get is a blank page. With pen in hand, I wonder when the lion will be tame and docile or ferocious and feral. There’s no way of knowing.

This becomes especially difficult when I’m asking this wild, unpredictable animal to help me make a living. I will dangle a big, fat, juicy piece of steak in front of a wild, hungry lion and ask it to roar loud enough to ensure the crowd’s return. Every time it performs and does what I ask of it, I’m guaranteed the opportunity to walk into the lion’s den the next day: locking the cage, collecting bloody specimen from our feeding bucket, inviting more onlookers to watch, and (drum roll please) feeding this creature once again.

Yet, always, the fear remains that I will eventually lose this lion or be eaten by it.

So, thus, the fears and dreams exist intertwined in a bloody mess of flesh and blood. I can either:

• refuse to enter that lion’s den because I’m ruled by fear and uncertainty.

or…

• enter that lion’s den because, despite the fear and uncertainty, I dare to live a life in pursuit of truth, beauty, and courage.

I will dangle a big, fat, juicy piece of steak in front of a wild, hungry lion and likely lose the steak, my arm, and pride in one big bite. Screw the damn arm, I say. You didn’t need it anyway. The lion’s wisdom is far more valuable.*Most especially because the fear you are going to contend with, I’m sure, is not in fact a hungry lion but something so evolutionarily insignificant that the universe will forget to punish you for your fearlessness anyway. 

Enter into that damn cage, dangle that big, juicy steak in front of the creature, and eventually, become one.

Stephen King says:

Just remember that Dumbo didn’t need the feather; the magic was in him.

If you dare to live a life of your choosing - one not led by fear or uncertainty - the wild, hungry lion will teach you how to roar.

This voice, this body, this life is on loan to you from some “unimaginable source for this exquisite portion of [your] life” and you’ve been called to awake the jungle.

ROAR.

Until next time,

Kiera