Patience

No one has ever accused me of being too patient--and my guess is that might apply to many others as well. I can't wait for the new grass shoots to appear every fall when I put down seed, am delirious with joy when the leaves stop falling and I can put the yard to bed for the Winter. My impatience does not extend exclusively to the garden but ranges across the landscape of my days with its own peculiar urgency. The novel I am reading urges me onward though I do not wish to see its end, the same holds true for the night ahead. Weariness drags me toward the bed but past a certain point I am conflicted by the warm comfort of my covers and my desire to attend the start of the day.

It's not as if I have some other place to be at this moment, some other thing that commands my attention. I have the luxury of time, or at least the illusion that the next minute or hour or day will unwind as it has before and at this moment nothing calls me away. At times like this, in the early hours of the day as I am writing this post, it is peaceful and my impatience is dampened by the quietude. Still, I am beckoned by the sense that there are things to be done, projects to be completed, repairs that await, amends to make.

My mind prompts me to leave the comfort of the chair and get on with the day, though my body is reluctant to do so, not because it is any less patient, but the minor aches and pains of the night have yet to be shed in the light of a new day and comfort triumphs, momentarily, over the need to get on with things. Soon it will see me sigh and march to the coffee maker for my single cup of dark brew. It would be nice to sit in contemplation but a complaining susurration beckons me to turn to the business of the day. And what is this business? It is life, the comings and goings, the preparations and the completions, the daily chores and occasional novelties that populate the hours.

Today I have only a few places to be at an appointed time, for the most part they are at the behest of others. I prefer it that way, my own urgencies and appointments are of little consequence, I have no patience for them but am happy to interrupt my purposeless busyness to fetch, go, or escort finding direction in someone else's concerns.

If any of this sounds familiar I welcome you to the club. We impatient misfits who are restless with nothing to do, bored by repose share a kinship of sorts. Our minds race with thoughts and our bodies twitch with the anticipation of what remains undone. Only in the depth of feeling , in the meditation of the heart do we find stillness. This delicate balance, action and emotion vying for our attention is not so easy to maintain. We tread carefully so as to avoid slipping over the precipice of either. Should we veer too much in one direction we can be assured of short correction, waking in mid dream with a lurch unsettled for a minute or two till we restore our bearings.

So, another day dawns, fresh with options, challenges and distractions. This belief we have in the future, as a time when things will be better, or a time that is hastening us on to an uncertain outcome is the drumbeat of the impatient. We are anxious to get there but do not wish to see it any sooner than its time. For once we are there, we will yearn for that solitude, that peace which comes only when we are still.