Missy Wilkinson

I write stuff about things.

  • Home
  • About
  • Writing
  • Contact

Archives for October 2016

Oct 26

A few thoughts about figs

Oct 26

An anonymous gift of figs, left by a coworker.

An anonymous gift of figs, left by a coworker.

Growing up in south Louisiana, figs weren’t so much a delicacy as they were a fact of life, something to be dealt with. In June and July, it’s hard to keep up with the mass ripening. Figs are constantly foisted upon summer potlucks, and I feel kind of meh when that happens. My coworker brings hundreds of figs into the office kitchen during the summer season. It’s either that or let the fig trees throw their fruit to the ground, where it lays smashed, overripe, ringed with mosquitoes and fruit flies. I didn’t develop a taste for figs until my thirties.

Last night I was reading Sweetbitter, which an Airbnber left behind (thanks, Airbnber). Sweetbitter kind of makes me want to wait tables again, even though I know it was really nowhere near as great as the book makes it sound (at least for me it wasn’t, but I didn’t work at a tony Manhattan place). Anyway, there’s this part where the narrator’s crush leaves a secret gift of figs in her locker. They become sort of this symbol for voluptuousness and sensuality.  He gives her four figs–only four!– and she devours them and likens them to sunlight.

Since we have a fig surplus down here, it was novel to for me to see them depicted as precious and rare. Was it really impossible to grow figs in most of the country, I wondered? I googled “Where do figs grow in the US” and learned about how ancient figs are, how they were the first fruits ever domesticated by man, and I realized figs really ARE precious and rare and voluptuous, and they DO taste like sunlight. And then I learned they can only be grown in the very deep south and California. I felt grateful to be from a place where magic is so commonplace, we don’t always see it for what it is.

signature

Posted by Missy Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Uncategorized

Mostly writing, sometimes dancing, always scooping up random cats.

Search

Archives

  • August 2021
  • October 2019
  • March 2019
  • December 2017
  • June 2017
  • April 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • May 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014

designed by: Fastwebdevelopers