Writer’s Block & Garden Figs
JULY 31 - Life is weird. It’s good, and it’s weird, and it shifts and changes and some days are good and some days are hard. “Maybe my brain doesn’t work right,” - most people when they’re having a bad Tuesday, and me, too. Maybe Covid lockdowns really broke something in our brains that we haven’t collectively recovered from. Maybe the internet breaks our spirit with constant inundation of every bad thing in the world, and in a world that seems particularly bad of late, that’s a lot of badness. Maybe it’s the men who have touched me without permission this year, and the men who have picked fights with me to try and rile me up, but never to listen (it’s a lot). Maybe it’s politics, maybe it’s familial, or maybe it’s just me.
Maybe humans have just had good days and bad days, or good weeks and bad weeks, for all of time, but now we all talk about it, and ponder on why it needs to be that way. Here’s what I know; even in France, frolicking around and living my dream, my brain goes foggy. I get writer’s block, and joy blocks. I get hung up on where I am going, who I’m supposed to be (and be with), and “what’s the point of all this” and I lose sight of where I’m at, who I am, and who I have the honor to be with right now. It’s a funny dance between my brain and I, but I don’t think it’s anything too unusual.
Figs and herbs from the garden 💚
It’s always funny things that make me feel alive again, and remind me that I don’t need all the answers. A few years ago, I broke out of a years-long numbness over the best vanilla ice cream I’ve ever had. To be fair, it was vanilla ice cream laced with chili pepper, sitting next to decadent chocolate cake on one plate, and smashed between two “patties” of baklava and crushed pistachio on another, and accompanied by a small pot of Turkish coffee. It was 10pm in Dubai, and as the ice cream melted in my mouth I stared at the shiny sidewalks, thinking I’d happily eat off them if my ice cream fell. My mind kept thinking, “I’m so happy to be alive,” as it had been for a few days in India, too. And suddenly I was crying on that patio in Dubai. The kind of cry that’s quiet because you’re in public and you’re as shocked by your tears as the person across from you is, and the tears fall heavily, and there’s no stopping a drop. But I realized that life is worthwhile for no reason at all, other than to be alive to experience being alive; things as simple as the beauty of new friendships and perfect vanilla ice cream.
So this year, I rapidly approach my 30th birthday. I get caught up on wondering where I’m going next. What state will I move back to? What work will I pursue? How will I become a mom if I can’t find a partner who wants the same things in life as I do? And admittedly, I enter states of numbness as these questions overwhelm me. But suddenly, it’s funny little things that jolt me back to the present, to the grass under my feet and the wind at my cheeks.
I’m living in Caen now, and working in an incredible bakery. I live in the home of a lovely French couple. The other bakers and my housemates are all helping me learn French, and in the course of 4 weeks I’ve learned more than I had in my first 6 months in Paris. I’m not used to these new hours, or the new physicality of my work. Never in my life have I woken up between 4 and 5am, five days per week, for four weeks. By the end of the first week I’m sure I was delirious. By the end of the fourth week, I was feeling strong, mostly well-rested, and like a real baker.
At this lovely house I’m living in, there’s a huge yard, and in the huge yard are endless gardens. My housemates are away for a while, so I’m watering this endless garden for them. Of course, this is the sort of task you initially take on a bit begrudgingly. “Will you water the garden for us?” asked my sweet, sweet host. Me, in my mind, “the garden? Surely you meant the many, many gardens, and this is no small task.” But I, out loud, of course, said I’d do it. Thank goodness they asked, and that I said yes. The first day I took on this great task (it’s really not a hard thing to do at all, as it happens), I made my way around the yard. Five minutes at this rose bush, 30 seconds on that pot, 2 minutes on the herbs. And suddenly, I’m beneath a grape vine with bunches of tiny grapes wrapping their way around an old garden shed that I had never noticed. How unbelievably quaint. Then, boom. A fig tree, branches toppling this-way-and-that. And as I stood there with the garden hose pointed at the base of the fig tree, what did I find but an enormous, ripe, purple fig. So there I was, with my bare feet in the grass, hose in one hand, fig in the other. Anya lay somewhere in the yard, tail wagging simply for the joy of being outside amongst the garden mice and tennis balls. And I bit into that fig, and suddenly I remembered why we’re on this earth. It’s to make time to play fetch with our small dogs, and write silly postcards to our friends who are thousands of miles away, and to stand barefoot in gardens eating fresh fruit off wobbly trees. How glorious to live a life like this!
I’m so blessed beyond words. Knowing that doesn’t always make the numbness disappear. But it’s a good thing to know, nonetheless. How lucky am I to eat fresh figs, and to bake hundreds of loaves of bread every day surrounded by kind souls who took me in as one of their own, regardless of language and origin and backstory. I’ve had friends visit me from the U.S., and I’ve shared my new favorite city with them, walking through the glittering Paris streets with ice cream in hand (I would not eat ice cream off Paris sidewalks, for the record, but that doesn’t make me love Paris any less). My best friend of nearly 30 years will arrive on my 30th birthday (that’s when it will be 30 years of our friendship, too), and I spent a month traveling France and Italy with my mom. There is no world where my present is not very, very good. The trick is to remember to allow the future to come when it will, and to allow the present to be with us while it’s here, I think. I’m working on it 😊
Avec tout mon amour,
Jesi & Anya
Below are a lot of moments that made me feel grateful over the last few weeks 💜
