Patience, grasshopper.

My brother and I used to ‘walk the rice paper’ when we were young. According to Kung Fu, once you could walk the rice paper without tearing it then you would be a ninja rock star. Or something like that. We would carefully lay down 15 feet of of typing paper sheets and gingerly walk across them, jumping at the end onto the (in retrospect, quite dangerous) irregular rock slab fireplace shelf jutting from the wall. I think we bent the paper. Anyway, it was an exercise in patience.

There was also the time I was caught in my Subaru Outback during a massive storm and encountered deep standing water across the road. I saw a vehicle ahead go through it so I thought I’d Crocodile Dundee my way through too … but I’d never been taught to go through a puddle slow. I powered through, creating 5′ high wake. And washed out my engine. The commercials are misleading. Again, patience.

I’m reflecting on patience because of late I’ve had that feeling of restlessness that sometimes sneaks up on me, like an animal pacing in its cage at the zoo, or the way you can feel a storm in the air before it shows up. The full moon effect.

Now, I was raised in a Christian household, so I’ve heard the proverb “patience is a virtue” more times than I can remember. I also remember singing the Have Patience song for a church musical, I even remember the lyrics:

Have patience, have patience
Don’t be in such a hurry
When you get impatient
You only start to worry
Remember, remember that God is patient, too
Just think of all the times when others
Have to wait for you

This song resonated with me as a kid before I knew the word resonance. Especially given that, as I was singing from the back row, the restless feeling was building, impatience to get to the cookies over on the table in the corner, impatience to get home and watch Kung Fu, impatience…”what do you mean start from the top? why doesn’t everyone know these damn lyrics already?!”  I also was not yet familiar with the word irony at age 9.

But really the key is that phrase “you only start to worry.”  I get agitated, restless when I get impatient. I start subconsciously worrying–a lot–which manifests in a physical anxious feeling of wrongness. (For me, this is closely related to having control issues, but I won’t cover that very rich subject today.) And lately I’ve been impatient about a lot of things. More than the usual bang the crosswalk button 20 times impatient, more than the ‘make your point already, we don’t have all day’ impatience that we’re conditioned to have in this culture of rapid-fire, real-time communication and convenience. I am impatient for life.

I realized this because my typical way of dealing with The Restlessness is to make a list and then mercilessly work my way down that list, trying to find the source of my impatience, control and corral it. This is an excellent strategy when it turns out the source of restlessness is a messy house and the corresponding subliminal nagging to create order and cleanliness. Crossing items off a list doesn’t work so well when the impatience is oriented towards life changes that fundamentally take time, like cultivating fulfilling relationships, living a more authentic life, being more connected with creativity, community, nature.

Serendipitously, I listened to one of the podcasts by my former professor Dr. Barbara Mossberg, where she talked again about slowing down in life, marveling at the world around you. Indirectly… having patience. I suppose it wasn’t completely surprising, given her podcasts are called Poetry Slowdown. But still, it was good timing.

So here’s how I’m dealing with my impatience in the month of November. I’m writing and moving and creating a lot. Writing in this blog, writing in my journal, writing for NaNoWriMo, painting, drawing, sculpting, crafting, cooking, walking, biking, dancing…whatever. And conversely I’m unplugging. From Facebook, from the social calendar, from television, from the to do list… listening, getting outside…oh and getting to Paris. Being mindful of what I say, do, eat. Investing energy only in relationships that open my  mind and heart. Emptying my brain via creative juice and simultaneously trying to sit in the emptiness, aware and listening, until something breaks free, until that delightful, wild feeling of openness surfaces, the antidote to the caged restlessness.

I admit, it’s taken the form of a list. Some habits are hard to break.