59.

[taken somewhere between the carolinas]

"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 Europe and Africa and South America, 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."

-Sylvia Plath

The Bell Jar

since i've been in north carolina i've had a lot of discussions about this place that twenty-somethings often find themselves in. it exists somewhere between responsibility and freedom...amid adhering to that guidebook for life that our folks provide us and just going with our gut. recently i told myself i'd never ignore that feeling inside again - where your body convulses with "no's" and you say "uhhh, yeah." and here i am, sitting cross-legged, having an afternoon beer on the porch with friends and traipsing around decisions and fantasies. plans that i, for some reason, consider "realistic" and "wild" while i try to assess the weight of each and how to know which would bring more joy and "valuable" experience into my life.

so, i read plath and thought about my own fruit. my fig tree is ornamented with fruits of apprenticing to a carpenter, to working towards owning a farm and loving a parcel of land so much that i pour my days into it, to reconnecting with the earth and removing the distraction of trains and buildings, of smart phones and living so close to my neighbors "you can smell their poots" (as my mom said). there are also figs that resemble the life of a lawyer fighting for social justice, or a teacher (in the most formal sense) gaining and sharing knowledge (derived from the most formal means). then the harder-to-reach figs atop the tree; the artist who grows and uses her skills to educate younger people about the value of independence and understanding, but most importantly about the value of handiwork, of crafting, of labor that is not only nourishing to one's mind but also to one's reality. hand-crafting makes our world more intelligible, makes our realities more tangible and manageable. management...that may be it. to manage these desires that the curious mind acquires as it evolves and actively engages in life becomes rather difficult. i wonder how to be curious without wanting to master things? i wonder how to dabble in everything or if dabbling has any value.

dabbling and exploring and constantly learning different ways to penetrate and participate in life is far less frightening that having to commit to a decision of "what to do" or how to align passion and grown-upness. no need to rush onto the conveyor belt to grown-up land or the life of the professional (thanks j. lord). how to summon up the courage to not be afraid to choose presents another pesky thorn of growing older and gettin' wise.

i just sometimes wish that those figs would fall into my lap and i could say, "dang, i was hungry anyhow."