A Feast of Figs

I’m a big fan of the blog.

I’ve been blogging it privately for over twenty years. I started recording my thoughts in a five year diary I received for Christmas when I was eleven years old. The diary has since lost it’s cover and a good part of the month of January, but I still have it. Since then I’ve not been able to stop recording my thoughts because I’ve realized one thing; nobody cares as much about what I’m thinking than I do.

That being said, I’m sure this blog will be nothing more than a cheap form of therapy. Being a woman, I have a lot on my mind and, being a woman, I want to share what’s on my mind.

So what’s on my mind?

Well, I mentioned that I was eleven years old when I started journaling. At that time my mother, who turned 23 two days after I was born, was only one year older than I am now. If you bother to do the math you’ll figure that I am nearly 33-years old and, had I bothered to get a head start like my mother, could conceivably be the mother of a 10-year old. Or worse; I could be the mother of a 10-year old and a 7-year old as she was (I have one younger brother).

It’s not that I don’t want children. I know I want at least one child. It’s just that I want so much more.

My husband and I went to the library the other day. Among the various books I checked out were a cornbread cookbook (I’ve been in a baking frenzy ever since I bought the Kitchen Aid Mixer I’ve been coveting for years.), a book chronicling the history of British food (that’s how much of a foodie I am) and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. Add two trashy romance novels into the mix and you have a literary haul any schizo could enjoy.

I’ve never read much of Plath’s poetry, not even the obligatory “Daddy” doled out in my American Lit class in college. Truth be told, I skipped class the day “Daddy” was discussed and had to thus skip any questions related to the poem that showed up on the final. I ended up with an “A” in that class. I’m not sure what that says about me or the university.

So I started to read the book, all the while thinking, “She’s not so great. I don’t know what the big deal is. Maybe Gwyneth Paltrow can help me understand…” And then I read the following passage…

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.

From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out.

I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and one by one they plopped to the ground at my feet.

Yup. That’s about it.

I read this as I sat on a bench in the arboretum of the university where I now work, the same university that gave me an “A” for not reading Plath’s poem years ago. Never before had I seen my own feelings so clearly stated on the page. To want it all yet afraid to choose a path. I sat back in the bench and let out a breath. So I wasn’t alone.

Isn’t it funny how we think we’re the only ones who feel a certain way? Surely there was no other woman so overwhelmed with choices that she didn’t know which way to turn. No other woman was afraid to settle down lest she settle period. No other woman was afraid of looking back at an unfulfilled life.

So this blog is an attempt to sort out my figs. My fig tree resembles Plath’s in many ways. I want the domestic life, but I also want a bit of adventure. I want the children but I also want the fulfilling career. I’m at a bit of a disadvantage now, having more prime child-bearing years behind me than before me, but hopefully I still have enough time to pluck those figs from the tree and feast.