If Patience Were a Vitamin, I’d Take the Whole Bottle

My aunt, who until recently was Queen of Crochet, with many large and intricate projects under her hook, read about my return to knitting.  She had this to say:

“It’s like anything else…it needs time and patience.”

She made it sound so simple.  If my body has a deficiency, it’s that it seemingly lacks receptors for Vitamin “P”:  patience and perseverance, which might, over time, help create more perfect outcomes.  At the moment, I’m referring to knitting, where stitching errors are hard if not impossible to conceal.  One can’t paint over them or, as in ceramics, smooth wet clay over a crack or uneven spot.  As I stare at my half-made scarf, my eye can’t help but zoom in on the holes and wayward stitches, normal for a beginner but still irksome in their obviousness.  Perhaps one day I will have the patience to unravel rows to fix such mistakes, much as I’ve (grudgingly) learned to chisel away parts of my mosaics that weren’t quite right.

Meanwhile, I seem to be predisposed to absorbing more than a healthy dose of Vitamin “D”: driven-ness which, if it does not lead to a desired result, contributes to dispiritedness and distractedness, perhaps downward-spiraling into depression.  It might as well be a Vitamin “D” Complex, a sprawling development of Soviet-style cement barracks that encroaches on my capacity to cultivate and harvest Vitamin “P”.

“Finish this or else,” hisses driven-ness, like a blinkered bulldozer that doesn’t concern itself how many flowers, plants and native species it uproots in the process.  It doesn’t care if I lose sleep, skip exercising or eat poorly in “service” of whatever goal it has decided I need to finish or else.

Luckily, there is a nutrient that can stop Vitamin “D” in its tracks, and possibly force it to retreat.  That’s the mother of all supplements, Vitamin “B”:  The breath.  If one is inhaling enough oxygen and slowly releasing it, the body can’t simultaneously be in overdrive.  A focused flow of breath dissipates the blinding fog of urgency and “or else-ness” while irrigating patience.

On Sunday, a day I typically (but not religiously) post here, I was still struggling over a few paragraphs when the clock struck 9pm, the time I now turn off the computer and start to power myself down for the night.  I was tempted to succumb to driven-ness and stay up late for the sake of folks who expected to see a new blog entry.  If you are one of those people, I thank you for your readership and patience.  Unlike me, you don’t need to double your dose of Vitamin “P”.