The Perfect Fig

Yesterday I was doing a quick "drive by" shop of the Trader Joe's across from my office. I was working a long shift and wanted to have some fruit and nuts for quick snacks I could grab between appointments, when I saw a large container of fresh figs. I love figs. Love them. Heart them. After quickly assessing their mold situation (fresh figs seem to mold before they leave the store), I snagged them with glee.

I didn't end up eating them until I got into the car to head home. I broke open the seal, reached in, and bit deeply into a fig. It was good; good enough for another one. This one was better. One by one I worked my way into the box, relishing each one, until I bit into a fig that exposed me to a depth and richness of flavor I had never met before. It was a fresh fit with all the dark, sweet funkiness of a dried fig. I was transported.

This transcendent experience put me in a quandry. My choice:

1. Stop eating figs (For now? Forever?) as no fig can compare to this perfect, ripe jewel.
2. Eat more figs hoping for more of the same or, be still my heart, one even better.
3. Eat more figs acknowledging with a sweet anguish that no fig will ever live up to this one.
   

What do you think I did? What would you do? What does this say about attachment and equanimity? If you try to log in and it gets hinky, email me here.

New Haiku For You

Birds chirp and chatter
About the pain in my back
I should listen

This is the haiku that wrote itself during my day-long retreat this weekend. The point of sitting is NOT to be creative - or even to think. Sometimes they happen anyway.