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- The Fig Tree
The Fig Tree
For the ones who see their lives branching out in front of them.
Kristina Khodai
July 16, 2024
If you’ve ever read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, you will know the fig tree metaphor. And if you haven’t, allow me to introduce it to you:
“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 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.”
Like many young women who stumble across this passage, this metaphor haunts me. I think of the fig tree when I can’t stop myself from picking up a new hobby (because what if I haven’t found my favorite one yet?) or figure out how I should spend my free time after work (because there are so many hobbies and things to choose from!). But mostly, when it comes to my writing, I feel as though I am sitting in my own tree, watching the branches of possibility extend before me but crippled with the fear that I will make the wrong choice.
When I started this blog in December 2019, I didn’t know what the next few years held for me. The world of quarantines and masks and moving out of state and other life-altering moments existed in some alternate universe that I couldn’t even fathom. I only knew that the year was about to end, and it felt right to document my creativity at that certain moment in time. I only knew I loved to write. I still do.
It’s been three years since I’ve composed something to share with the world. Three years that have been filled with some of my best and worst moments to date. And just as I did nearly five years ago sitting in my college apartment, I wonder if my words have any real weight or meaning. What is the point of posting into a vast online world where so much content already exists? Who will even read it? What if I don’t write about anything interesting? What if what I write has already been said? What if I fail and it’s terrible and I’m terrible? (Welcome to my brain! It’s scary up there!)
Meanwhile, as I sit and wonder about the best way to approach my creative writing, I’ve let three years go by filled with no posts, incomplete ideas, and even an unfinished manuscript that I can’t seem to get around to fully drafting. The figs of my possible futures branch off in a million directions; how could I possibly know which path is best for me? I want to do it all! But I realized I’m asking the wrong questions.
The question “How do I know which path is best for me?” is a useless question because there is no way to know. My "best" cannot possibly be quantified. My "best" comes down to me showing up for myself every day and giving into my creativity.
So, I’ve shifted gears. Instead of wondering what will become of my writing, I’ve decided to start up my blog again anyways. Instead of worrying that someone has already written what I’ll write, I’ve decided that no one in the world has my exact voice to share my exact story. Instead of asking if I’ll fail, I’m asking: What if I succeed? What if people love it? What if people don’t love it, but I do anyways? What if this is only the beginning?
When approaching the concept of restarting my blog, I wondered what niche, if any, I should stick to. Should the space be reserved for personal essays and poems? Strictly professional or educational content? Recipes? Book reviews? Home and style topics? The brainstorming web on the paper in front of me ironically had started to resemble the fig tree. It all sounded wonderful and brilliant to pursue, yet I’ve sat around starving myself from the enjoyment by not knowing where to start.
And so, I choose it all. I'm starting exactly where I am and as I am.
When I look at the root of why I love so many things and want to try my hand at as many things as possible, I realize it’s simply because I’ve always been very excited about life. As a little girl, I wanted to be a doctor and an artist and a writer and solve crimes and work in a science lab and put on shows and sing like Hannah Montana and create beautiful things forever and ever. She is still inside me, tugging at my heart strings to shine brightly when I pick up knitting needles or my film camera or sit down at my sewing machine, or most of all, when I write. And she deserves to let her spark ignite further, not dwindle because of indecision.
I will not let the figs before me wrinkle and plop to the ground. I choose to nurture the tree — to keep climbing and branching out as my life unfolds before me.
If you’re still here reading with me, thank you. I hope you can find some pieces of you in my stories. I hope you’ll come along and live in my reverie with me.
xo, Kristina
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