Having Patience

Patience is a virtue – it just doesn’t happen to be one of mine.

I have to keep reminding myself we’re in a crisis and there are serious consequences to consider. I try not get annoyed that we can’t go to the movies or the theater, or the beaches. While very tempting, these places are full of people, and everyone knows, we MUST avoid crowds. (OK, I admit I hate the beach, but IT’S THE PRINCIPLE OF THE THING!)

I seem to not have passed my impatience onto my kids. John just got his PH.D. – an exercise in patience if ever there was one. Month after month, year after year, researching, planning, explaining, writing. DEFENDING. Every step required patience. I would have thrown my computer out the window the first day.

Anthony designs and builds apartment buildings in Oaxaca, Mexico. Waiting on construction crews requires the patience of a saint. But wait, he does.

Danny is another whole story…or, to be more precise, a whole series of stories. Judging from comments I hear from people meeting him for the first time, he is one of the nicest guys in town. I’m inclined to agree but I keep wondering what they expected. One unfortunate lady tried to explain what she thought but she got all tangled up in the effort. It seemed to have to do with, and I quote, “he was such a “smart as….you know, kid… on that show.”

His patience seems heroic on occasions, like the time a man slid a piece of paper under the door of the men’s room stall, so Danny could autograph it. Dan did. And added a smiling face.

But I always felt like my daughter’s temperament didn’t fall far from the exasperated tree. Celia rails against traffic and Trump with an energy that exhausts me just to witness. But during this pandemic, she’s demonstrating this weird Zen calmness when it comes to… her quilting. She will sit her down with a few thousand little squares of colorful cotton, and she turn into the patron saint of self-control.