The Fig Tree, Reconsidered.
“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.”
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about Sylvia Plath’s fig tree analogy.
The idea that your life stretches out before you like a tree full of possibilities, each fig representing a different future. A life of travel. Raising a family. Dedicating time and energy to meaningful work worthy of recognition. A life with no goal other than to exercise one’s creative muscle in every way possible. And the fear that if you choose one, the others will wither and fall away.
For a long time, that idea made me feel overwhelmed.
Because I want so many things.
I want to travel the world and see places that make me feel small in the best way. I want to open a nature retreat and preserve, something that brings people closer to the earth and to themselves. I want to have a family and be present and loving. I want to be a good friend. I want to write a book. I want to study environmental science and do work that actually matters.
And sometimes it feels like too much. Like I’m standing at the base of that tree, frozen, because I don’t know which fig to choose- often wondering if some of them (the best of them) might be too high to reach.
But recently, I’ve felt my mindset shift.
What if the fig tree isn’t as final as we make it?
What if it’s not a single moment of choosing, but a series of seasons?
Trees don’t produce fruit once and then stop. They grow, they shed, they rest, and then they grow again. Figs might wither in one season, but the same branches will produce new ones in the next.
Maybe life works like that too.
Maybe I don’t have to choose one version of my life and lose the rest forever. Maybe I can travel in one season, build something in another, nurture relationships in another, and return to dreams I thought had passed me by.
Maybe it’s not about choosing one fig.
Maybe it’s about trusting that there will be more.
More time. More growth. More opportunity to become who I’m meant to be.
I think there’s a lot of peace in that.
In letting go of the pressure to do everything all at once, and instead allowing life to unfold in seasons.
So right now, I’m choosing not to panic at the base of the tree.
I’m choosing to trust that the branches will keep growing.
That the things meant for me won’t disappear just because I didn’t reach for them immediately.
And that I don’t have to live just one life.
I can live many, over time.
