Post Patience

As I slowly rebuild the blog's home page inventory, I'm reminded of its original intent:

The snow has clung to every available surface. The most spindly branches of the forsythia have “Vs” of snow, and I can imagine the accumulation, patient and slow, crystal attracting crystal until little pockets formed. I hope this blog will be the same, a slow, patient accumulation of words.

Today I focus on the patience part of this equation. Patience has never been my strong suit. In the little inventory I sometimes take at the end of the day — when could I have been kinder or stronger? — many failures come down to impatience, wanting to check off a box, complete a task, rather than waiting a while, living with the the slight discomfort of uncertainty.

In Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, "Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue."

That will be my mantra today, to live with what is unsolved, to love the questions themselves.