175. I Have Been Eating Figs – Annie Campbell
I have been eating figs. Everyday. The season has been extended by Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, and I try to buy enough for a couple of days at a time. They are delicious.
I have been eating figs. Everyday. The season has been extended by Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, and I try to buy enough for a couple of days at a time. They are delicious.
My husband has been mystified by this and I try to explain how good, how sweet, how satisfying they are. He bites into a fig and shrugs. Why are they so delicious only to me? Yesterday my friend Goldie wrote about plums and grief—and as she read, my tears, unshed, lit up behind my eyes. Suddenly, I knew why the figs were so sweet.
There was a house in Jericho at the foot of the Mount of Temptations. It had been an ancient sugar mill. On the main level was a terrace shaded with bougainvillea and vined grapes. The veranda stood above terraced orange groves and date palms and had a view of the Jordan River and the Moab Hills beyond. It was small and in the open courtyard, stone steps wound up to the roof level, where there was an old spring-fed pool. “Weekend house” seems too grand a name for such a primitive spot, but that is what it was for us.
The water in the pool was cool and black. Once we went to the house in the middle of the week and shepherds were bathing their sheep in the pool. This partly explained the dark murky water. It didn’t stop us. Into the water we dove, rising to tread water while reaching for the figs from the trees that grew around the pool. There were six of us in that water. Only two of us are left to tell the story.
I read my parents' letters about the war and the fighting and the refugee camps below our house. Yes, I remember all of that. But that is not what I remember when I eat figs. I remember my family, all of us, treading water in a murky pool and reaching up to the branches heavy with fruit.
I remember the celebratory call and response: “Tean,” one of us would call out the Arabic word for fig. The rest of us would respond with "Alhamdulillah." Thanks be to God.
– Annie Campbell
