I decided to rename this blog. I have not posted anything in quite awhile, and I came to realize that this purpose of having this blog has changed for me. So, the name had to change too. The title is really a line from a passage in Sylvia Plath's semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar:
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. . . . 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.
The quotation doesn't leave the reader with inspiration or hope necessarily (and Plath's suicide certainly doesn't scream those adjectives either), but there is a hopeful message in the fact everyone struggles with decisions. There is a powerful message for women in the fact that we are together in our struggle to conquer the many roles of professional, mother, wife, vixen, etc. Sylvia Plath's work reminds me that the things I struggle with do not alienate me; they make me a part of the human race. To struggle is to be human and to overcome that struggle, make something happen, that is when we start to let our divinity sparkle through (of course, only for it to come crashing back down again...humility, humility, humility).
Check out this wonderful article that reunited me with The Bell Jar on its 40th year: The Bell Jar at 40
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