“Genius is Eternal Patience.” Michelangelo

Over these many months of 2020, I’ve developed this animal instinct of being on high alert sensing an impending disaster… but it never goes away and relief never comes. This flight or fright state leaves me weakened and easy prey to impatience which makes my stress levels soar.

Since early childhood I’ve been pretty slow on the uptake practicing the virtue of patience. I-want-it-now-tantrums morphed into impulsive bad decisions, into faulty reasoned thinking that I had some control over outcomes in my life. But I’ve learned these last few weeks, with a lot of time for reflection, that succumbing to the art of patience has brought me some peace.

This past May, in the midst of the pandemic, I applied for a large scale art commissioning here in NYC. The deadline was the 31st, and applicants would be notified late summer/September. I realized this was a long shot, but I told myself regardless of the outcome, I was proud of the quality and effort I put into it.

I managed to enjoy a summer vacation back in my home state of Maine but began to dwell on how an acceptance would impact my life. My lease was up November 1. Very soon I would have to make a decision to stay in NYC or return to Maine. Late summer turned into September. I was getting impatient.

Obsessing about it didn’t help, and I was making myself miserable, so I sent an email September 15th asking when they were notifying applicants. Two days later I received a reply: “…hopefully late September.”

What?! I complained, stewed, agitated, then tried maturity and prayed and meditated for an answer. On September 29th, it finally came: “…the notification timeline has shifted slightly, and we are notifying all applicants by late November.” !x#*!

And there it was.

Patience delivered me a painful noogie.

But I got it.

I simply had to wait and trust in the process, surrender to the present moment and the unknown. I know this in theory, but now I have to let go and live it. I have to soften myself to be more receptive to what is. Not practicing patience is like dialing up the universe and then getting a busy signal. This quote from the book Lab Girl underscored it:

“Each beginning is the end of a waiting. We are each given exactly one chance to be. Each of us is both impossible and inevitable. Every replete tree was first a seed that waited.” Hope Jehrens

A second lesson presented itself a week later after completing another art application for a museum open call. I carefully filled it out and uploaded my photos, but one of the questions was asking for a web site. I have a blog site but not a art site except for a Facebook art page. For some reason, I considered posting this, but when reviewing my app, I impetuously hit the submit button leaving it blank… even though I had another 24 hours to do so.

This impulsivity nixed any chance of being considered since the review committee has no other work to support a decision. This same jumping- the- gun impulse to hit “publish” catches me up too. One more revision might have made a big difference. If only I’d taken a deep breath and stepped away for a while.

“A patient man has great understanding, but a quick tempered man displays folly.” (Proverbs 14:29)

My heightened awareness brought in to focus just how often we are challenged to practice patience and how our reactions to it can either add negativity to an already too stressful world or alleviate it.

After waiting in line at the post office, I finally stepped up to the window to mail an overseas package. The clerk greeted me curtly and it kinda went downhill from there. This time I did take a deep breath and rather than biting back felt a degree of empathy for this person. Any number of difficult things could be going on in her life. I didn’t take it personally and, instead, felt a kind of kinship with this woman. Maybe even a little love?

I read numerous posts on social media about practicing kindness. Kindness requires patience. So just take a deep breath before you blare that horn in traffic, show annoyance with that slow poke holding up the line, or respond with a nasty comment to a differing political belief.

My high alert feelings of impending doom are moderating. I’m still running, but it’s to a different higher ground, and I’m trying to be more helpful modeling for others how to get there too.