Under the Fig Tree

As children, we didn't need walls to build a home.

A few low branches, a little imagination, and a tree became our castle, our hiding place, our whole world.

Perhaps that feeling never really leaves us.

Even now, many years later, there is something special about sitting beneath a fig tree. Its broad leaves filter the summer sun, wrapping everything below in cool shade and quiet stillness. Time seems to slow down there.

In August, it rewards your patience with sweet figs.

The rest of the year, it offers something just as valuable.

A place to pause.

The old barrel beneath the branches reminds me of another time. A slower time. Not necessarily easier, but one where people seemed to know how to sit in the shade for a while without feeling guilty for doing nothing at all.

Perhaps that is what we have forgotten.

In a world that asks us to move faster, produce more and stay connected every waking moment, maybe the answer isn't somewhere new.

Maybe it's simply...

under the fig tree.