The hard part is the waiting. The not knowing. The space which your mind fills with visions of disaster or denial. Patience is the state of being in this liminal place with a quiet mind. This place is where we live every second of every hour. Patience is not waiting – patience is continuing to live even though we do not know when the other shoe will drop.
Patience is a form of hope, an acknowledgement that eventually things will change. Patience is a form of mindfulness, a grounding into the present moment. When I think of the word patience, I think about times I desperately wanted to escape. Like when I was 8 days overdue with my first child, or brutal intervals during a track workout with the only way out, through. Patience is hanging on for dear life. I don't think of patience fondly, but without it, I would be nowhere.
Jul 25, 2023·edited Jul 25, 2023Liked by M Tamara Cutler
“This is like the marshmallow experiment,” I said to my brother-in-law, our host for Thanksgiving. He had asked if I wanted something to eat or drink. There were some yummy-looking hors d’oeuvres set out, but dinner was only a couple of hours away, and I didn’t want to spoil my appetite. Since he looked puzzled about the reference, I explained. “The marshmallow experiment was a study where children were offered a choice between one marshmallow now or two after waiting a few minutes.” In follow-up studies, the children who were able to wait tended to have better rates of success: SAT scores, educational attainment, health, among others. I grinned. “Because I’m anticipating a sumptuous Thanksgiving dinner and want to fully enjoy the feast—the two marshmallows instead of one—I’ll wait.” All through our visit, I noted how common those instances of patience and delayed gratification are. But after looking up the study, I discovered more recent studies cast doubts on the original experiment’s conclusions. Also, rather than anticipate the promised marshmallows, the "patient" children distracted themselves so they wouldn’t think about or look at the reward. I confess to using the same strategy with the dips and chips, crackers and cheese, olives and pickles and my favorite: celery stuffed with cream cheese. Stepping away from temptation, I talked with family members and waited for dinner—including two pieces of cream cheese stuffed celery.
Waiting, being patient. I don't think I'm very good at patience. Depending on the situation it can cause me to have anxiety. So many different things to be patience about. Sometime I able, but other times I'm not. If I'm at a restaurant waiting a reasonable amount of time for the server to take our order is a time to be patient. But if I think its not a reasonable amount of time my patiene will run out. I think the key to paitence for me is letting go. I tend to want to control everything. Control and paitence obviously don't work well together. If I realize I can't control the situation then paitence comes much easier for me.
I am not patient with stuff, although I am very patient with people. Here’s the opposite of patience. In fact I think it is the very definition of lack of patience: When I’m making toast for myself, I am too impatient to wait for the toaster to pop. I’ll pop it up manually even if its just warm bread at that point, with a faint hint of crispiness. And when I get out of the shower I’m too impatient to wait until I’m totally dry and just dress damp. Of course this humid summer some days it feels like we never get totally dry. With people, though I am so patient. It doesn’t feel like effort, it feels like a privilege, as I wait while my autistic child patients express themselves. I am touched that they try so hard in spite of communication difficulties, to tell me what is on their minds.
Sitting in 22A, on an 8-hour transatlantic flight from Málaga to Newark, final destination Northeast Philadelphia, I put in the patience necessary to arrive, prepared for Uncle Bob’s funeral on Saturday at Saint Katherine’s, thinking about his legendary patience, whether it morphed into something else, apathy maybe, taking him down a difficult road, hardship, which led to today, UB dead, the family another trip to Pennypack, his house, where he isn’t, won’t ever be again, death’s finality, the effect, as he misses our wedding, an affair seventeen years in the making, his excitement for us, now short one at the Hotel El Mirador in Loja, where local custom dictates, above all, patience, let tomorrow come unbothered, as it will, whether you rush or not, whether you remain or have already left the party, ours, the one in which we have all been invited, the only game in town, the wait, the clock ticking, the sound ignored, but not forgotten, as we reach deep down, to bear it all, with love and grace.
Jul 28, 2023·edited Jul 28, 2023Liked by M Tamara Cutler
Family wouldn't consider me a patient person, which hurts but is fair. However, the perfectionist in me makes that I can stay on task to see a project through to the very best of my abilities no matter how long. That version of patience has allowed me to learn so many things from 3D digital sculpting to plumbing, book binding to furniture refinishing. I have an insatiable appetite for skills. In recent weeks though, I have begun to wonder if all of that hasn't just been a distraction from making art, the one pursuit which I have always considered my calling. It scared the shit out of me to risk finding out that I'm just no good, have no vision. I think I was subconsciously operating under the idea that if you don't try, you can't fail, and I've thrown away decades. I'm now working hard to muster up the patience with my ridiculous self, be at the easel, and make up for lost time, come what may.
The hard part is the waiting. The not knowing. The space which your mind fills with visions of disaster or denial. Patience is the state of being in this liminal place with a quiet mind. This place is where we live every second of every hour. Patience is not waiting – patience is continuing to live even though we do not know when the other shoe will drop.
Patience is a form of hope, an acknowledgement that eventually things will change. Patience is a form of mindfulness, a grounding into the present moment. When I think of the word patience, I think about times I desperately wanted to escape. Like when I was 8 days overdue with my first child, or brutal intervals during a track workout with the only way out, through. Patience is hanging on for dear life. I don't think of patience fondly, but without it, I would be nowhere.
“This is like the marshmallow experiment,” I said to my brother-in-law, our host for Thanksgiving. He had asked if I wanted something to eat or drink. There were some yummy-looking hors d’oeuvres set out, but dinner was only a couple of hours away, and I didn’t want to spoil my appetite. Since he looked puzzled about the reference, I explained. “The marshmallow experiment was a study where children were offered a choice between one marshmallow now or two after waiting a few minutes.” In follow-up studies, the children who were able to wait tended to have better rates of success: SAT scores, educational attainment, health, among others. I grinned. “Because I’m anticipating a sumptuous Thanksgiving dinner and want to fully enjoy the feast—the two marshmallows instead of one—I’ll wait.” All through our visit, I noted how common those instances of patience and delayed gratification are. But after looking up the study, I discovered more recent studies cast doubts on the original experiment’s conclusions. Also, rather than anticipate the promised marshmallows, the "patient" children distracted themselves so they wouldn’t think about or look at the reward. I confess to using the same strategy with the dips and chips, crackers and cheese, olives and pickles and my favorite: celery stuffed with cream cheese. Stepping away from temptation, I talked with family members and waited for dinner—including two pieces of cream cheese stuffed celery.
Waiting, being patient. I don't think I'm very good at patience. Depending on the situation it can cause me to have anxiety. So many different things to be patience about. Sometime I able, but other times I'm not. If I'm at a restaurant waiting a reasonable amount of time for the server to take our order is a time to be patient. But if I think its not a reasonable amount of time my patiene will run out. I think the key to paitence for me is letting go. I tend to want to control everything. Control and paitence obviously don't work well together. If I realize I can't control the situation then paitence comes much easier for me.
I am not patient with stuff, although I am very patient with people. Here’s the opposite of patience. In fact I think it is the very definition of lack of patience: When I’m making toast for myself, I am too impatient to wait for the toaster to pop. I’ll pop it up manually even if its just warm bread at that point, with a faint hint of crispiness. And when I get out of the shower I’m too impatient to wait until I’m totally dry and just dress damp. Of course this humid summer some days it feels like we never get totally dry. With people, though I am so patient. It doesn’t feel like effort, it feels like a privilege, as I wait while my autistic child patients express themselves. I am touched that they try so hard in spite of communication difficulties, to tell me what is on their minds.
Sitting in 22A, on an 8-hour transatlantic flight from Málaga to Newark, final destination Northeast Philadelphia, I put in the patience necessary to arrive, prepared for Uncle Bob’s funeral on Saturday at Saint Katherine’s, thinking about his legendary patience, whether it morphed into something else, apathy maybe, taking him down a difficult road, hardship, which led to today, UB dead, the family another trip to Pennypack, his house, where he isn’t, won’t ever be again, death’s finality, the effect, as he misses our wedding, an affair seventeen years in the making, his excitement for us, now short one at the Hotel El Mirador in Loja, where local custom dictates, above all, patience, let tomorrow come unbothered, as it will, whether you rush or not, whether you remain or have already left the party, ours, the one in which we have all been invited, the only game in town, the wait, the clock ticking, the sound ignored, but not forgotten, as we reach deep down, to bear it all, with love and grace.
Family wouldn't consider me a patient person, which hurts but is fair. However, the perfectionist in me makes that I can stay on task to see a project through to the very best of my abilities no matter how long. That version of patience has allowed me to learn so many things from 3D digital sculpting to plumbing, book binding to furniture refinishing. I have an insatiable appetite for skills. In recent weeks though, I have begun to wonder if all of that hasn't just been a distraction from making art, the one pursuit which I have always considered my calling. It scared the shit out of me to risk finding out that I'm just no good, have no vision. I think I was subconsciously operating under the idea that if you don't try, you can't fail, and I've thrown away decades. I'm now working hard to muster up the patience with my ridiculous self, be at the easel, and make up for lost time, come what may.