Leaves and Patience

This is our first Spring in this new house, and there are lots of things to notice ... rabbits hanging out in the yard, ground squirrels running away at our approach, birds building nests on the outdoor fans (leaving their messes on the patio), quail partners chasing each other across the streets and yards, wildflowers, and new pads and flowers on the succulents. Even our mandarin tree, which in two years hasn't yielded anything, has blossoms. Then, we get to our mesquite trees.

This neighborhood goes back a long time - some mesquite trees' main trunk are as tall as some of the the two-story houses. Nearly every house has at least one mesquite, even different kinds of mesquites. Some with thorns and yellow pollen puffs, some crooked and knarly, others straight and tall. But all of them have at least little green buds of leaves sprouting, if not full leaves. Even the "green space" trees between houses shows signs of green.

Our mesquite trees -- nothing.

I silently worried that ours were dead. They don't look diseased, there aren't ant or termite infestations (anymore). Everything seemed ok in the fall and winter when the leaves fell off the tree. I'd check up close, looking for the little buds that would give me a sign that everything was fine. I'd check every few days, only to find no leaves.

Until today.

Finally buds! The smaller trees even have leaves that seem to have sprouted overnight. I breathed a sigh of relief.

I'm taking this experience as a reminder to let things happen in their own good time. For those that know me and my incredible lack of patience, I hope you didn't laugh too hard when you read that last sentence.

And this reminder comes at just the right time. Lately, I've been frustrated because my writing progress has been slow, like slower than a snail's pace slow. On a great day, I can get two to three hours of writing activity, more often it's closer to an hour a day. There are little reminders at how much progress there is still to make: it is week 21 in my online writing course and I'm just starting week 11; my goal of having both stories ready for the query process by the end of the year. It often seems like I'll never finish my revisions until the kids get into college, which is about nine years away.

Things are going WAY too slow for me, but unless I completely ignore my primary motherly and household duties, this is the pace at which this writing gig is going to happen.

So, despite the agonizingly slow progress, I'll get my butt in my chair and write - even if it's only for 15 minutes. And try to remember that, one day, my own writing will bloom and take off too.