Part I:
When I think about it, and I realize I'm hardly objective about this, I think the 20s must be the hardest period of a person's life. As in decisions. paralyzing. fear. everything. depends. on. me. making. the. right. decision. right. now. and. I. have. twenty. seconds. to. do. it. right. the. first. time. Intimidating, no?
I haven't been looking for any kind of theme for my summer reading, really. Books have found their way into my lap. And yet I have found a running theme. Paths. Choosing a life path. Feeling debilitated when life paths don't make themselves apparent. Feeling incredibly discouraged when we have to change tracks.
I don't want anyone to OD on this theme in one sitting, because these posts are to be quite literary heavy, full of lovely quotes that resonated with me. Hang in there. Maybe you and I will reach a place of peace, courage and hope at the end of this series. Just maybe.
The Books:
1. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
2. Traveling with Pomegranates: A Mother and Daughter Journey to the Sacred Places of Greece, Turkey, and France; Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor
The Characters:
1. Esther Greenwood
2. Ann Kidd Taylor
I'm going to move thematically across the texts, from the "choosing a life path", to the "feeling debilitated when life paths don't make themselves apparent", and finally to the "changing tracks" and then...who knows?
For the purposes of this post, I'm focusing on The Bell Jar by Ms. Plath. A good feminist standby. And for some reason it was always a book I was a little afraid to touch for fear that I myself would be caught in a maelstrom of mental instability (the main theme of the book is Esther Greenwood's struggle with mental illness; it's fairly autobiographical, it mirrors Plath's own experiences). Yet no one told me how funny Plath is while addressing this topic. Sure there are serious bits, but her dark humor made the book so surprisingly readable. I recommend it.
Esther receives a rejection letter (a happening shared in our next book with the Kidds) for a Writer's workshop. She is expecting to get in. Suddenly, with rejection letter in hand, she is lost. Directionless, purposeless, she starts hatching half-baked plans, desperate for a path:
" I decided I would put off the novel until I had gone to Europe and had a lover. . .I thought I would spend the summer reading Finnegans Wake and writing my thesis.
"Then I would be way ahead when college started at the end of September, and able to enjoy my last year instead of swotting away with no makeup and stringy hair, on a diet of coffee and Benzedrine, the way most of the seniors taking honors did, until they finished their thesis.
"Then I thought I might put off college for a year and apprentice myself to a pottery maker.
"Or work my way to Germany and be a waitress, until I was bilingual.
"Then plan after plan started leaping through my head, like a family of scatty rabbits.
"I saw the years of my life spaced along a road in the form of telephone poles, threaded together by wires. I counted one, two, three....nineteen telephone poles, and then the wires dangled into space, and try as I would, I couldn't see a single pole beyond the nineteenth" (122-123).
The rejection letter from the workshop knocks something loose inside of Esther. She realizes that "The one thing I [am] good at [is] winning scholarships and prizes, and that era [is] coming to an end" (77).
She becomes woundingly unsure of herself. She feels she is a "racehorse in a world without racetracks", woefully unprepared for the world she has to survive in.
"I saw my life branching out before me like [a] green fig tree. . .
"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" (77).
Are you identifying with this yet? I so completely and totally identify with this. It strikes me that it is possible to over-think this whole path thing. Striking out and finding your path, moving forward as you best know how is the only way to keep yourself from going absolutely crazy (which, ahem, Esther does by the way), because waiting for it to come to you, well, it just ain't happenin'.
Now, this post is taking a direction I hadn't anticipated. For the past few weeks (years?) I've been thinking a lot about what it means to "have it all" (a topic much too broad for this post, so I won't get into it here too much). I'm reminded of my lovely mentor, Dr. C. Now, this woman is phenomenal, she's helped me through rough times, convinced me to do things I didn't think I could, I trust this woman. She knows me, she knows my situation, my personal life; she's informed and in touch. The last time we had lunch she told me, "You can have it all. Just not all at once." I believe her. It reminded me of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's reading of The Feminine Mystique. The unexpected message she got from it was that life is long. Oh yeah, YOLO and Carpe Diem and all that crap too, but you gotta have a plan because life phases come to an end.
So is it possible that Esther, that all of us (even me!), could just start grabbing those figs within our reach? Moving forward; taking opportunities as they come along; clearing an area for new opportunities to grow when they're ready, when we're ready?
Until next time, happy fig-grabbing.
What do you make of all this? Grab those figs by the stem? Cherish one at a time? Wait and watch? What's your approach to making life choices? I'm not convinced there is a right or wrong way. P.S. I challenge my own idea of grabbing at figs willy-nilly in part II.
Works Cited:
Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar. Harper Perennial Modern Classics. 2006.
When I think about it, and I realize I'm hardly objective about this, I think the 20s must be the hardest period of a person's life. As in decisions. paralyzing. fear. everything. depends. on. me. making. the. right. decision. right. now. and. I. have. twenty. seconds. to. do. it. right. the. first. time. Intimidating, no?
I haven't been looking for any kind of theme for my summer reading, really. Books have found their way into my lap. And yet I have found a running theme. Paths. Choosing a life path. Feeling debilitated when life paths don't make themselves apparent. Feeling incredibly discouraged when we have to change tracks.
I don't want anyone to OD on this theme in one sitting, because these posts are to be quite literary heavy, full of lovely quotes that resonated with me. Hang in there. Maybe you and I will reach a place of peace, courage and hope at the end of this series. Just maybe.
The Books:
1. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
2. Traveling with Pomegranates: A Mother and Daughter Journey to the Sacred Places of Greece, Turkey, and France; Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor
The Characters:
1. Esther Greenwood
2. Ann Kidd Taylor
I'm going to move thematically across the texts, from the "choosing a life path", to the "feeling debilitated when life paths don't make themselves apparent", and finally to the "changing tracks" and then...who knows?
For the purposes of this post, I'm focusing on The Bell Jar by Ms. Plath. A good feminist standby. And for some reason it was always a book I was a little afraid to touch for fear that I myself would be caught in a maelstrom of mental instability (the main theme of the book is Esther Greenwood's struggle with mental illness; it's fairly autobiographical, it mirrors Plath's own experiences). Yet no one told me how funny Plath is while addressing this topic. Sure there are serious bits, but her dark humor made the book so surprisingly readable. I recommend it.
Esther receives a rejection letter (a happening shared in our next book with the Kidds) for a Writer's workshop. She is expecting to get in. Suddenly, with rejection letter in hand, she is lost. Directionless, purposeless, she starts hatching half-baked plans, desperate for a path:
" I decided I would put off the novel until I had gone to Europe and had a lover. . .I thought I would spend the summer reading Finnegans Wake and writing my thesis.
"Then I would be way ahead when college started at the end of September, and able to enjoy my last year instead of swotting away with no makeup and stringy hair, on a diet of coffee and Benzedrine, the way most of the seniors taking honors did, until they finished their thesis.
"Then I thought I might put off college for a year and apprentice myself to a pottery maker.
"Or work my way to Germany and be a waitress, until I was bilingual.
"Then plan after plan started leaping through my head, like a family of scatty rabbits.
"I saw the years of my life spaced along a road in the form of telephone poles, threaded together by wires. I counted one, two, three....nineteen telephone poles, and then the wires dangled into space, and try as I would, I couldn't see a single pole beyond the nineteenth" (122-123).
The rejection letter from the workshop knocks something loose inside of Esther. She realizes that "The one thing I [am] good at [is] winning scholarships and prizes, and that era [is] coming to an end" (77).
She becomes woundingly unsure of herself. She feels she is a "racehorse in a world without racetracks", woefully unprepared for the world she has to survive in.
"I saw my life branching out before me like [a] green fig tree. . .
"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" (77).
Are you identifying with this yet? I so completely and totally identify with this. It strikes me that it is possible to over-think this whole path thing. Striking out and finding your path, moving forward as you best know how is the only way to keep yourself from going absolutely crazy (which, ahem, Esther does by the way), because waiting for it to come to you, well, it just ain't happenin'.
Now, this post is taking a direction I hadn't anticipated. For the past few weeks (years?) I've been thinking a lot about what it means to "have it all" (a topic much too broad for this post, so I won't get into it here too much). I'm reminded of my lovely mentor, Dr. C. Now, this woman is phenomenal, she's helped me through rough times, convinced me to do things I didn't think I could, I trust this woman. She knows me, she knows my situation, my personal life; she's informed and in touch. The last time we had lunch she told me, "You can have it all. Just not all at once." I believe her. It reminded me of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's reading of The Feminine Mystique. The unexpected message she got from it was that life is long. Oh yeah, YOLO and Carpe Diem and all that crap too, but you gotta have a plan because life phases come to an end.
So is it possible that Esther, that all of us (even me!), could just start grabbing those figs within our reach? Moving forward; taking opportunities as they come along; clearing an area for new opportunities to grow when they're ready, when we're ready?
Until next time, happy fig-grabbing.
What do you make of all this? Grab those figs by the stem? Cherish one at a time? Wait and watch? What's your approach to making life choices? I'm not convinced there is a right or wrong way. P.S. I challenge my own idea of grabbing at figs willy-nilly in part II.
Works Cited:
Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar. Harper Perennial Modern Classics. 2006.
5 comments:
Yes. You know I can identify with this. I'm often afraid that if I don't do something RIGHT NOW, then it's not going to happen at all. This post reminded me of a quote that I like by James E. Faust:
"Women today are encouraged by some to have it all: money, travel, marriage, motherhood, and separate careers in the world. For women, the important ingredients for happiness are to forge an identity, serve the Lord, get an education, develop your talents, serve your family, and if possible to have a family of your own. However, you cannot do all these things well at the same time. You cannot eat all of the pastries in the baking shop at once. You will get a tummyache. You cannot be a 100-percent wife, a 100-percent mother, a 100-percent Church worker, a 100-percent career person, and a 100-percent public-service person at the same time. How can all of these roles be coordinated? I suggest that you can have it sequentially. Sequentially is a big word meaning to do things one at a time at different times."
Best of luck, cousin. My advice? Try to enjoy the moment, even if you're not yet living ALL your dreams.
I've always really liked that quote. Thanks for sharing.
Wow I love that quote too! I don't remember hearing it before. So can you do each of those thing sequentially on a weekly basis, or even hourly basis (for the wife/mother)?
Here are my "metaphorical" thoughts:
*Sometimes you sacrifice a fig for someone you love, and get pleasure from seeing them enjoy it.
*You are sitting in the fig tree and you feel a breeze. Calmly you close your eyes and stretch out your hands, and 'plop', when you open your eyes a big juicy fig sits in your palm.
I know that God expects us to make decisions, set goals, and continually progress, but every once in a while I think we can just relax, put our trust in him, and let Him guide our path.
I love you Jen and hope you are able to fulfill several of your dreams in Manhattan!
I thought this Ensign article was great in talking about life's directions:
http://www.lds.org/liahona/2008/04/treasure-of-eternal-value
It's funny seeing you mention "The Bell Jar" since a few days ago, I decided that I needed to finally read it this summer (I have previously only read Plath's poetry and a few excerpts). Where to start in how I think about these questions? Actually that Ulrich statement is pretty close -- I can't count how many times I've told myself and my friends, "Life is long." There have been quite a few times when it seemed that my life was prematurely coming to an end, but it has always been spared and it just reminds me that life is LONG. I have had so many opportunities that seemed impossible when I was a sickly teenager, and I believe that that is how most people, who have the kind of advantages we have, will feel if they are invested in life and learning and experiences.
That said, I have invested a lot of time and energy in figuring out what my life's work is. I was actually just writing a mental blog post about this last night thinking about what would and would not be on my bucket list. Raising Addison and any other children is critical, nurturing a good partnership with Neal, and helping incarcerated people -- these are just about the only things that I feel I MUST do in my life. During some periods, I feel like figs/opportunities fly at me and rather than letting them choose me, I have to weigh them against my life's work and see if they match. Will they further those few things I have considered that my life is really, REALLY about?
I love this post so much, Jen. The thought of Esther/Sylvia/you/me sitting in that fig tree and STARVING. TO. DEATH. from indecision is an image and thought that's just piercing my heart right now.
My thought about choosing the figs: it's probably a mistake to think that choosing one fig means that all the other ones, or even most of the other ones, are immediately off-limits and forever out-of-reach. Maybe you choose a fig, figure out (ha! FIGure out) it's not the best option for you, and then decide to go back and choose a different one. I'm kind of in that situation right now in terms of where Craig and I are living. We decided to set out on this experimental adventure of living in Seattle, which was actually just the fig of BEING ON OUR OWN. It's an appealing fig, complete with the sugary topping of being in a big city with lots of diversity and culture and amazing scenery in our own backyard. But what fig did we have to put on hold? BEING WITH FAMILY. And it's become abundantly clear that, as much as I wish I could have both right now and for years to come, if I have to choose, I want the fig that keeps me close to home. I want to see my brothers more than once every few years. I want my future kids to go to their grandparents' homes and see their cousins often. I want that more than I want the snazzy Seattle fig. And it's not out of reach; more accurately, the fig I really want is more attractive and important to me now that I've tried the other option.
So anyway, I guess my observation here is that figs aren't necessarily limited-time offers. You can't undo your decisions, but you can evaluate them and change course. And you can get little tastes of different figs that make the whole meal a lot more tasty.
Post a Comment