Patience
My daughter once gave me the nickname of Patrice. She used it whenever I was particularly impatient. If I was grumpily badgering her and her brother to get going or sighing with exasperation at what was not happening fast enough, she’d say, “Alright, Patrice.” or “I hear you, Patrice.” And it nearly always did the trick. I laughed and snapped out of the have-to-right-now mindset and realized the silliness of my approach to the moment. Be lighter, my daughter was telling me.
I wonder if impatience comes with aging. I remember watching my dad in a grocery store deli line. As we watched the guy behind the counter fill tubs of salads and make sandwiches at a pace that could be described as ambling, I could see my dad grinding his teeth with frustration. Uncharacteristically, he swore under his breath at the situation. I thought me might combust right then and there. True, the deli guy was hardly efficient and the line could have been avoided, but it was what it was. In that moment, I made the promise of a 20-something to never have that reaction.
Of course now I’m approaching the age my dad was in his final years of life and I’ve got his jaw, the one that bites and chews at stress like a grasshopper busy with fall leaves. (I’m actually on a waiting list to get on the waiting list for a TMJ clinic!) I miss my dad mightily. And I thank him for unwittingly sharing his impatience with me as a learning tool, a reminder of the futility of trying to control time. His example didn’t cure me of anxious irritability, but it provides a reminder. Now, when I catch myself in it, I recognize what’s going on and pull myself out of it. I soften my jaw, take a deep breath, smile at myself and take it all down a few notches.
This lesson is feeling needed these days as the infant business I birthed last summer, Hypha, comes into greater focus and reality. People ask me how it’s going as though I should have troves of clients by now. As though I’m on the verge of something ‘big.’ As though it’s already evolved from an embryo to an NBA center in these short months. I gulp and feel sick and very often beat myself up for not having more business acumen, for not being cleverer, for not for not for . . . In reality, I’m still trying to get a rhythm and figure out how to stay financially afloat.
It’s scary as hell sometimes. And it can get Patrice going! I have to tell her it will be okay. Things will emerge. You can’t force it. Patrice, I say, take a breath. Smile. Be gentle.
We’re moving into winter. This is the time of mending, of listening, of telling stories. It’s the time when Frederick, that wise mouse shared the stories he’d collected during the summer and fall when his friends were busy working. When the food grew scarce and everyone was cold, it was his stories that kept them warm. Last week’s lower temperatures and flurries were a tasting menu of what’s to come and of much harder it will be to move quickly — ice, cold and darkness don’t care for quickness. I have ideas for the winter that I want to do—workshops and meetings and planning. Lists of ideas. And yet I also want to be with what I’ve already planted—those seeds that I’ve put in the ground in the form of relationships and proposals.
In a few weeks, I’ll lead a writing retreat around these themes of winter. In the new year, I’ll offer story circles and a writing & movement series about inner trust. Each of these has something to do with what I’m creating. I’m not entirely sure what or how, but I can be patient. I have faith that something interesting, perhaps even beautiful will emerge. Patrice agrees.
