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.
So, because I never seem to know a working moment that I can’t occupy otherwise, I have been playing this retarded vampire game on Facebook.
In this game, you can “gift” your abilities to other clan members. It’s a way of balancing your team. You give me “blood sucking gore” times two, and I even it out with something like “seduction of violent tendencies.” Silly game, interesting concept.
See, it occurs to me that we all lack some fundamental thing. For me, it’s physical discipline, moderation. For you, perhaps, it’s patience.
I have patience in spades. Minus a few neuroses, I can watch paint peel. I think about the mango tree we planted in the back yard, and I know that time is my enemy. I know that, the present being what it is – a crazy microscope – I will just as soon find my partner and I, years from this, staring at the tree that was a seedling, deciding which fruits to pluck before they fall. That’s me. I am acutely aware of the transient place we occupy.
My partner is no good at patience. I had to remind her of it just today. Finding an apartment in Copenhagen is like some cosmic game of whack-a-mole, requiring lightning reflexes, timing, and the ability to modulate your adrenaline. Keyed up about some new option, my girlfriend was almost breathless with indecision.
“You know,” I said, “you’ve got two months to find a new place, love. If this doesn’t work out, something else will.”
I have a lot of faith in things working out for the better. I have no illusions about the artificial “agenda” we set for ourselves. My girlfriend works years toward a specific goal, only to lose sight of it in the home stretch, looking onward to the next big affirmation.
Of course, that is why she is an engineer and I am, really, not even published.
The thing about her rush to the finish, however, is that sI feel like she never gets to feel the glory of the moment. As Alan Watts has said, “To live for the future is to miss the point, everlastingly.”
But who’s perfect, Jill? My girlfriend has worked tirelessly for a brilliant career that I am too ignorant to even describe. She does not question her motives; she moves on. She can bike miles on end without a labored breath, has been in Denmark this whole month without so much as considering a Diet Coke or a cigarette. If she could gift me any of that, I’d gladly tolerate a little less patience.
Balance is the thing I want. Balance, I think, is grace.
I do seem to couple with people who enjoy reading manuals, and LOVE research, and want to talk to me about lactoferrin and other shit that I’ve never heard of. I think you’re right that balance is grace.
Mostly, I don’t mind my impatience because it helps me to be madly efficient, but I remember a road trip with a buddy where he told me, half a day later, “Have you even looked away from the road? Noticed any of the trees or mountains?”
I miss stuff, rushing around, promoting my own agenda. Sometimes I have to change my pace to move forward. When I get tired of struggling, and take some time to breathe and glance around, I kind of enjoy where I am.
By the way, that game sounds pretty wicked. I have a serious thing for vampires.
Hey, check out amazon.com:
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #59,144 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in this category: (What’s this?)
#65 in Books > Gay & Lesbian > Literature & Fiction > Fiction > Lesbian
I sometimes lament that fact that, professionally, my partner and I have nothing in common. We really can’t discuss a lot of what we love with each other.
Then I remember dating people exactly like me. The sense of suffocation was ever-present.
(Oh, and Vampire Wars on FB. Just the break in efficiency you were looking for.)