The Spoon and the Oil

When I was a young man, I believed the secret of life lay somewhere far away—perhaps at the peak of a distant mountain, tucked within the pages of a sacred text, or hidden in the eyes of a weathered sage meditating in silence. I was restless then, driven by questions that left me pacing even in my dreams. I wanted answers. I wanted meaning. I wanted to uncover the one truth that would make all the pieces of life fall neatly into place.

And then, one day, I met her—my mother-in-law.

Now, she wasn’t what most people imagined when they thought of a mother-in-law. She wasn’t stern or meddlesome. No, she was something entirely different. Her past was like a patchwork of vibrant colors—once a dancer in the moonlit theaters of Istanbul, later a schoolteacher in the sun-drenched classrooms of Morocco, and, if her whimsical stories were to be believed, a companion for a short time to a wandering Sufi mystic in Shiraz.

By the time I came into her life, she had folded her wings. She lived alone in a modest home nestled at the edge of a sleepy village. Lemon trees lined her garden. Time moved slowly there, like the warm breeze that filtered through her gauze curtains, casting shifting patterns of sunlight across her floors.

One golden evening, as we sat together on her veranda sipping mint tea, I asked the question that had long burned inside me.

“You’ve traveled the world,” I said. “You’ve met poets and philosophers, saints and wanderers. What is the secret of life?”

She looked at me as if she had been waiting all along for me to ask.

“I will tell you,” she said gently, “but not in words. You must feel it.”

She rose and returned with a small silver spoon. Into it, she poured a thin stream of golden olive oil, just enough to coat the surface without spilling over.

“Take this,” she said. “Walk slowly through my garden. Look at everything—the orange blossoms, the bees, the sky, the stones. Let the garden show itself to you. But—” she paused, her tone suddenly serious—“don’t spill the oil. Not a single drop.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? Not even one drop?”

“Not even one.”

And so, I walked. Step by careful step. My entire focus was on the silver spoon. My hands trembled slightly. I watched the oil shimmer, fragile as a soap bubble. Around me, the garden swayed with color and life, but I hardly noticed. I didn’t dare look up. Every sound, every scent, was dulled by the tension of not failing.

When I returned, the oil was intact.

“Not a drop spilled,” I announced, proud of my discipline.

She smiled. “Good. Now go again. But this time, forget the oil. Just enjoy the garden.”

Reluctantly, I set off again.

This time, everything changed. I saw how the sunlight filtered through the fig leaves like liquid gold. I watched a small cat stretch lazily on a warm stone wall. I smelled the heady perfume of jasmine curling through the air and heard the distant laughter of children playing in the lane. The garden breathed. And for the first time in a long while, I felt myself breathing with it.

When I came back, her eyes went to the spoon in my hand. It was empty. I had spilled all the oil.

“Did you enjoy it?” she asked.

“It was beautiful,” I said quietly, almost embarrassed.

She nodded and raised her own spoon, steady and full. “Now you see?”

I looked at her, puzzled.

She held the spoon up between us. “This,” she said, “is the secret. Life is like this. You must learn to hold the spoon steady and still see the garden. If you only focus on the spoon—your responsibilities, your burdens—you will miss the beauty all around you. But if you only see the garden and forget the spoon, you lose what you carry.”

I was silent. Her words struck something deep in me, deeper than any sermon or book ever had.

“Balance,” she whispered. “That’s the secret. You must walk through life with both—awareness and wonder, discipline and delight. It’s not one or the other. It’s both. Always both.”

Years have passed since that evening. She is gone now, the garden a little overgrown, the lemon trees taller. But I carry that lesson still. In moments of chaos, or fatigue, or doubt—I remember the trembling spoon, and the joy of the garden.

And I try, every day, to walk holding both.