About a year ago, I read The Creative Way by Rick Rubin; if you haven’t read it, I cannot recommend it enough. It basically walks through all the things I chat about with friends and with members of any creative group I am part of or teach. I was probably literally nodding along the entire time while reading it.
I also marked it up with the intent of going back to it as a conversation starter. Everything I write or create is part of a larger conversation, and lately the conversation has been bleak.
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It’s been a tough season for me and I am growing increasingly restless. I am grieving my lack of family presence, single-parenting is haaaaard, and I am feeling stunted in my business ventures.
But the reality is, this is life. And life has seasons of beauty and seasons of struggle. I also believe we can (should!) take the space to lament when we are in these seasons of struggle.
AND I believe we need to seek out ways to keep moving forward in these seasons. A sort of lament without languish.
I’ve just had a hard time reframing and moving forward. I’ve wanted to write to process things, but couldn’t even find a jumping off point.
In an effort to find one, I picked up Rick Rubin’s book, thumbed through, and ran across this sentence I underlined: Impatience is an argument with reality.
On the side I wrote: OOF. Yes. Here and now is where you NEED to be.
The Amy who read and wrote that knew something the Amy of now has forgotten: Here and now is where I NEED to be. It’s where you need to be.
And we might not ever fully know why we need to be where we are, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Being in this moment is for our own good; even when it feels like sh*t.
Here’s more of that page. (Rick talks about patience through the lens of a creative, but I argue we filter it through the lens of a human. We are all creatives after all):
“Patience is required for the nuanced development of your craft.
Patience is required for taking in information in the most faithful way possible.
Patience is required for crafting a work that resonates and contains all that we have to offer.
Every phase of an artist's work and life benefits from cultivating this achievable habit.
Patience is developed much like awareness. Through an acceptance of what is. Impatience is an argument with reality. The desire for something to be different from what we are experiencing in the here and now. A wish for time to speed up, tomorrow to come sooner, to relive yesterday, or to close your eyes then open them and find yourself in another place.”
I realize this borders on the Serenity Prayer: O God, give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what can be changed, and the wisdom to know the one from the other.
Except I like Rick’s take even better, because it doesn’t just tell us to accept what cannot be changed, it tells us that it is necessary and beneficial for us to walk through. The patience of accepting the present moment leads to a more beautiful craft. It leads to a more beautiful life, in fact.
As someone who is no stranger to anxiety, I can have a hard time with patience and the present moment; I am constantly looking forward or back and forgetting to stand with my feet planted firmly in the moment (which is why I think grounding has helped….and I am sad the ground is so stinking cold now.)
But if I spend this time stressed out, I am going to miss the moment and all the lessons that I need in order to create and live more beautifully. Being stressed out over things in my present that I wish were different and being stressed out over an unknown future takes my energy and mind away from the things to which I need to pay attention in each moment.
Rick’s take also invites us to stay aware while in the moment. Sometimes the word “patience” has a connotation of sitting and waiting, but Rick uses all sorts of active words to illustrate what we should be doing in our patience: development, taking, crafting.
How would my day look different if I believed that, even through the struggle, the universe was still speaking to me? How would it change if I believed what I am going through is necessary in order to cultivate a sort of beauty? How would it change if I had the patience and presence to embrace each moment instead of wishing it away for some imagined alternate reality?
What would I notice? What would I learn? How would I grow?
I argue it would give me more of a sense of agency and help me enjoy these moments more than I have in weeks. And I far prefer that over the anxiety that’s been haunting me.
So here’s my own prayer for me and you: God give me the patience and presence to truly live each moment; help me to not constantly wish for some imagined alternate reality, but have the awareness to learn and grow from the very spot on which I stand; and the faith that the here and now is actually a necessary piece of a beautiful story.
(I’ve never been good at brevity.)
Amen
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