The Second Fig.

Sometimes, when you’re looking for something for so long, and it comes, it cannot possibly live up to what you’ve made it out to be. There are other times. Where you’ve been looking for something for so long, and then, you find it, it happens –and it’s more incredible than you could have possibly imagined. There are then those moments when you’re not really looking. It almost feels like they find you. Those moments when life’s melody matches the song in your heart perfectly. I was recently gifted a reminder on an unexpected trip to Spain. Something had been brewing, marinating, and waiting patiently year after year until I could receive it. Then, in a collection of seemingly tiny, unassuming moments, I entered the second act, and a chance to savor The Second Fig.

For many years, I’ve done the things. All the things one is ‘supposed’ to do. Work hard. Be serious. Achieve things, work harder, rinse and repeat. I did this and did it well. Life on this cycle, as many of you might know, moves fast - running headfirst into the person we think we should be. As time passed, I knew I was missing something, but it actually wasn’t what I thought. Over the years, I’d been given sign after sign after sign about what’s important – losing loved ones, a near-death experience myself, and on. Through most of it, I could quote what I cognitively knew to be important, but my actions couldn’t be further from what I knew to be the truth. 

It turns out it wasn’t about missing big events, birthdays, or anything like that. There was something, something more subtle, yet more powerful that I felt I was missing, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. And oh boy, did I try: every yoga class, meditation, wellness this, optimization that, book, podcast, mantra, spirulina, you name it, I’ve done it. I thought that if I could just find it, figure it out, be enough, then I would reach some undefined point, and there it would be. Whatever it was. 

It was, of course, right under my nose, quite literally. I had not only found it, but I’d created it and completely surrounded myself with it - seeds planted from an insatiable curiosity, a creativity, and a lifelong search for joy.  Moments. Singular, simple, often whisper-esce moments that have the magic, the sweetness, the richness I was looking for. After one hell of a first act, I’m convinced more than ever that it all comes down to moments - that allow us to connect to ourselves, to each other, and to nature. And that connection is everything. A collection of wildly simple, sometimes seemingly benign moments. That’s where the good stuff lives.

Those moments when a great book simultaneously overwhelms you with emotion and leaves you feeling seen when you turn the last page. Morning light on the vegetable garden. The thump on the bottom of a homemade loaf of bread, fresh from the oven, before slathering with butter and salt. The good butter. The best butter. A winter afternoon, silently reading library books on the couch next to your partner, sharing an overdue sweetness that could never be stated. Or a surprise lunch that appears seemingly out of nowhere, where an unassuming entryway becomes the impetus to an afternoon you won't forget. When your heart smiles, and life generously smiles back. The moments that stop us in our tracks. Remind us to breathe more easily from the place and person that we already are. Notice that the most valuable things in life often come in the smallest packages, in whispers, and often when you stop looking (usually after long bouts of trying to control everything and beating your head against the wall, but who’s counting).

These moments can feel like gold, or more aptly, an exquisite Sunday lunch that exchanges time for joy. Simply too good not to share - so here goes. 

Maybe you’ll decide to come along for the ride or just pop in from time to time. And maybe, just maybe, it’ll be the smallest reminder that despite the mad, mad, mad, mad world we sometimes find ourselves in, life is still full of sweetness and even a bit of magic if we’re willing to see it. The Second Fig is the adventure of saying yes to showing up for the minute moments that make life magnanimous – for the people, places, and adventures that smile at us. And remembering that it’s ok to smile back. 

So Spain? Come back next week for Spain - The Twenty-Year Seed, to find out what was waiting for me, again.