Just A Little Patience

One of the virtues I’ve always struggled with is patience. Blogagaard is a man of action, prone to leap into whatever fray there happens to be without much thought. At times, I am stunned that I am still alive, and I can only postulate that some angel or other guardian type-hangs above me, taking pity on my moments of impulsive idiocy (just a few weeks ago I drunkenly challenged a huge Samoan stranger to arm wrestling at the Uptown VFW, and after I beat him in stunning fashion he told me that I was lucky he liked me or else he had a gun on his person and would have shot me for embarrassing him in front of everybody. Seriously, this happened. I told him, “No, man, arm wrestling is all about the love.”)

Strangely, I have taken it upon myself to become a published novelist. Of all the possible professions I could have chosen, few would have required more patience than this to enact. I have one novel that has been floating around for 16 months, and another that’s been floating around for nine months (this second one has not yet garnered one reply, good or bad). Happily, last evening I cam upon the following passage while reading Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis (also author of The Last Temptation of Christ):

I remembered one morning when I discovered a cocoon in the bark of a tree, just as the butterfly was making a hole in its case and preparing to come out. I waited a while, but it was too long appearing and I was impatient. I bent over it and breathed warmed on it. I warmed it as quickly as I could and the miracle began to happen before my eyes, faster than life. The case opened, the butterfly started slowly crawling out and I shall never forget my horror when I saw how its wings were folded back and crumpled; the wretched butterfly tried with its whole trembling body to unfold them. Bending over it, I tried to help it with my breath. In vain. It needed to be hatched out patiently and the unfolding of its wings should be a gradual process in the sun. Now it was too late. My breath had forced the butterfly to appear, all crumpled, before its time. It struggled desperately and, a few seconds later, died in the palm of my hand.