introducing “the fig tree”
a newsletter expressing my observations, thoughts and adoration for film, literature and fashion.
in the seventeenth year of my life, I stumbled across Sylvia Plath - more specifically, The Bell Jar. no clever use of linguistic has really moved me as much as the fig tree metaphor, it just made perfect sense in my mind. I felt heard, the very notion of wanting to do absolutely everything in this abysmally restricted life. for as long as I remember, I had wanted to be a fashion designer, then a computer scientist, a politician, a lawyer, a journalist, a diplomat, a dermatologist…the list goes on!
“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 off-beat 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…”
to me, my thoughts and interests are each to their own, like figs resting on the tree. they are rarely related and large in number, lying on protruding branches and waiting to be expressed. some may not be expressed, as there is so much to say and such little time.
it was during one dreadfully depressing evening, as I was sipping on my lemon and ginger tea, I decided to express them somewhere other than my diary. thus, the fig tree was born, and I sincerely hope that it is somewhat of a refreshing read for you all.
having stumbled headfirst into a sylvia plath hurricane in 2021, I found myself immersed in her works (in particular, the unabridged journals of sylvia plath). she was fierce and passionate, she had so much to say. some of her takes were slightly controversial to say the least, but my point lies in the fact that she expressed everything she thought. I too, aim to do so, this is a platform for the very inner workings of my thought process.
this newsletter is a shrine to literature and cinema, to fashion, and to every unvoiced thought that has fallen coma in my brain. it is a love letter to pop culture and vanilla scented products and a criticism on the patriarchy and repression of speech. it is everything I wish to be, every fig on the fucking tree, and nothing at the same time.
and I hope you love it as much as I do!
— yours truly, the fig tree