Jill Malone

Atop the list of things I am sketchy at: patience. For the last several days, I’ve been given some lessons about patience. About not being snippy with a little boy who’s out of sorts and viral, or a student with a stressful project, or myself. Today, a friend kindly reminded me that I’ve been working on my third project, and am deeply, happily involved with it, and haven’t lost any time at all. “You’re being productive,” she reminded me.

Right, productive. That thing I most want to be. And I don’t want to rush. Not myself, not my work, not anyone else’s work. Things happen as they are supposed to. The story comes together on its own terms, and forcing never helped anything.

That makes a lot of sense. It does. And I can keep being angry and frustrated, or I can have some grace, and let my timeline go. Yup, grace. Nearly there. Definitely within sight of it. Grace. Sure, I’m on my way.

I really am quite close to losing my temper. Tired of holding back this big fucking dog, tired of the struggle, ready to watch whatever comes next. 

On the other side of this, I have had quite a sentimental weekend. Gavin is sick. A fever, and then vomiting, and then utter collapse. When he is ill, I trace back through my favorite moments, the treasure. How he used to call flamingos mangos. As in, I like those pink flying mangos. 

Or how he’s pathologically literal.

Me: What are you doing?

Him: Breaking this toy with a hammer.

Me: Why are you doing that?

Him: I don’t know.

Brooke gave him two pinwheels on Friday, and yesterday, on the phone with my mother, he told her about these pinwheels. My mother asked where he got them. “Brooke,” he said. “She gave me them because I’m her favorite boy in the world.” I looked up to find that Brooke had heard him, and was crying. You know, treasure.

If I keep those moments in my head, I’ll probably be fine. Probably not send flaming emails into the world. Probably not do anything rash or righteous.

Memory might be approximate, but time isn’t. If I tell you, four months ago, that I’ll get right back to you, what do you think I mean? If I say that you’ll hear from me by the end of the week, when will you hear from me? If I say Friday morning, what the hell am I telling you? 

Gavin told me yesterday that he’s going to drink Kitten Juice and turn into a kitten. Sometimes our imagination is all we have, so it had better be the best of us.

I’ve never worked to an outline, but for the last two manuscripts I’ve written, I’ve had a climax to work toward. The climax has been a kind of lighthouse to guide me. 

On this current manuscript, I have no idea where I’m headed. The process has been more halting this time, more baffling, and significantly more intriguing. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a scene that didn’t work. Too subdued, the character at a significant remove from the action, and strangely silent about the goings-on. Yesterday, ages later in the text, an unrelated scene with different characters, and somehow the earlier scene clarified. I saw her stiffness, understood her distance, and the opportunity of both. 

Is it trust, trust that allows me to keep going, to spare myself the DELETE button? Or some artistic patience that figures, in the end, it’ll all sort? Maybe it’s just momentum. A drive to keep pressing forward before the editor sneaks in and shuts the whole thing down.

Though not a consciously formed understanding, some part of my brain does know where it’s going, what it’s after, and the threads are weaving together with that objective in mind. Anyway, I fucking hope so.