Patience and Resilience

Fall is right around the corner, and everywhere I sense the approaching tang of autumn and cycles curving back around.

Thanks to you, dear supporters, I’ve transitioned into a new phase: sending query letters and proposal packages to this agent and that publisher, and my newest touchstones seem to be patience and resilience. 

Each step brings surprises; sometimes wisdom ensues. For example, I was unprepared to read the proposal draft, lovingly prepared by Indigo Editing, that refers to me as “Smith” in the author bio and marketing plan. Who’s this Smith person? I mused, trying to reconcile roiling inner doubts with the confident character the pages portray. I kinda want to hang out with her for a minute.

I was similarly unprepared to delight in my own company, in the process of distilling an entire chapter down to the essence of a few bare sentences. I swayed side-to-side in a tall barstool next to a koi pond on a temperate evening in a strange city, chuckling to myself as the right words seemed to leap confidently across the page. 

Open-Mouthed Koi

I‘m swaying again as I type these words in another strange city, watching birds dive confidently for fish in the Potomac. I left my next painting at home, reasoning that it would get travel-stained and I wouldn’t really have the time anyway. The sun is setting, and my fingers are twitching. I am…not unprepared exactly…but I’ve forgotten how painting rivets me, how much I loathe setting it aside to attend to mundane tasks like eating or sleeping. Time becomes immaterial, and in the unfolding flow I learn all over again the lessons of presence.

The Potomac from National Harbor

In my hunt for a publisher, then, presence is the buoy for my patience, the anchor for my resilience. 

Whatever cycles you may be sensing in the air as fall approaches, I’m lighting this candle tonight in recognition of your own patient resilience, your own desire to draw down abundance.