God is old and slow, someone once told me. Consider Old Man River (or Old Lady River, or Old They River). Rivers meander. The Goosenecks of the San Juan wind 5 river miles across a straight line of 3 miles. Rivers here out West have carved the most extensive canyon system in the world, but it took millions of years to do. Back East, the rivers are even longer and wider and slower. They, too, meander in S’s and elbows, leaving behind oxbows and backwaters. Rivers move millions of tons of silt and nutrients each year. Yet they’re old and slow. They take their time. Anything worthwhile takes time.

I am impatient for life to return to normal after Covid lockdown, whatever ‘normal’ is. I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone who has patience to wait when they really want something. I’m not saying patient people don’t exist. I’m saying that they’re rare. And if I ask for patience, my experience is that I’m presented with a traffic jam when I’m 10 minutes late for a court date. So, I don’t ask for patience. I let it come to me. I need to be patient in waiting for patience.

I recall, as a boy, watching my dad work in our basement. He was trying to build a breakfast nook, something he’d never done. He’d hammer and saw on his workbench. He’d break a piece of wood or measure wrong and come up short, and then the curses would fly: Goddamn sonovabitch! Piece a shit….

He was a good father, and an even better man. Years after he died, people still write my mother letters around Christmastime testifying to his generosity. It was just that he didn’t have a lot of that quality called patience. From those many hours of watching him build furniture, wire houses, remodel kitchens and fix things around our home, you know what I learned about being handy? Goddamn sonavabitch! Piece a shit…

It wasn’t my dad’s fault. He tried – patiently I might add – to teach me how to be handy. Wasn’t my fault either. I just don’t have handy in me. I’m the Three Stooges rolled into one. I’m building a garden bed right now, and it looks like an eight-year-old might’ve done it. But even though I haven’t inherited my father’s talent as a builder or a fixer upper, I did inherit his disposition. We can do little about the temperaments we seem to be born with. We can only seek to cultivate them or ween them of energy if they happen to be like mine.

I watched him work on that breakfast nook. It took him months to build. An electrician by trade, he made that thing from scratch, never having built anything like it before. He used oak, which he regretted because it was hard to work with. When it was finished, he stained the oak trim, inlaid the tabletop with tiles, and upholstered the bench. It was a thing of beauty. Took me forever, was all he said. My father was never one to pat himself on the back. Anything worthwhile takes time. I guess I learned that from him, too.

There’s an old song by a band from the 70’s who called themselves Jethro Tull, after a planter, an Englishman who invented a horse-drawn seed drill over 300 years back. The song’s called Nothing Is Easy. As I build my garden, and plant my seeds, I recall the song’s words. I had to wait until the snow was off Sleeping Ute Mountain before I planted, a local custom to ensure my crop wouldn’t be killed by a hard frost. I have to wait for the seeds to come up, and trust that they will. In their own time.

If something hasn’t worked out well, then it’s not done working out yet, since all things work for good in the end. I need to trust that. Trust’s the precondition for patience. Without trust that things will always work out well in the end, I won’t be patient enough to stick with anything worthwhile. I’m writing this in fits and starts, in dribs and drabs, because that’s how it’s coming out. I need to be patient with the process. Like waiting out this Covid-thing. Like a river. Like a garden. Like a man building a nook in a basement. Like my life.

Sure, I want this pandemic to end. But right now, that end seems a long way off. The economic and political consequences will take even longer to work themselves through. We are in a time of crisis. It seems as if things will never be the same, and maybe they won’t be. Yet they may be better than they were before, over the long term. The outworking of history reveals that, over time, crises yield the fruits of great awakenings. Life plays the long game. Like a river. Like a garden. Like the builder crafting a brand-new world. Anything worthwhile takes time.

© 2022 by Michael C. Just

Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.

You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23

Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002

Four of his short stories have recently been published online:

Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)

The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW

I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October

Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within