From the tip of every branch,
Like a fat purple fig
a wonderful future
beckoned and winked
Sylvia Plath
…another Journal page…not great colour as the background is actually yellow but I’m just “mucking about” and having a lot of fun with these pages!
I really love this quote by Sylvia Plath. It’s actually just a small portion of the whole quote which is from her novel “The Bell Jar”. Unfortunately Plath suffered from depression and ultimately committed suicide. This is the whole quote:
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, Chapter 7.
I can understand that feeling of not knowing what to choose, becoming paralyzed by indecision and being fearful that your choice might be the wrong one. Thankfully I’ve worked my way past that now but I remember at one time, having twelve different splotches of paint colours on my living room wall for almost six months…agonizing over the choice! It was a huge area that needed painting and I kept thinking “what if I hate it once it’s done”! I was finally reminded by someone that I’m not Picasso and I wasn’t painting a masterpiece…it was just walls and paint…which put it into perspective for me and I was able to make my choice easily after that!
It’s about knowing that we can trust our own innate inner wisdom and thankfully there are very few area’s in life where we can’t change our minds!
Today I’m wishing for all of you, many choices,...all of which, lead to a joyful life!
