New Years makes us want to fast forward:

Quieting that urge

“I’m starting to understand something here,” she says, and all of us think she's talking about the tree. “Every thing leads to the next thing.” – Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

“Things take the time they take. Don’t worry.” – Mary Oliver, “Don’t Worry”

Photo by Duane Mendes on Unsplash

January dawned, and a feeling of restless dread came over me like I had started a race two laps behind. That feeling turned me into a possessed little energizer bunny, asking myself and everyone around me for goals and single-word visions. My husband David got the worst of my rapid-fire questions. Racing to put dates in the calendar. Racing to wrap my arms around a new vision for the novel I am working on. Trying to paint a full picture of the year before it has even begun. All the while, one word keeps inserting itself into my thoughts and journal entries: slow.

Essays from other Substackers this week have reinforced the slow-down message.

Emma Gannon

wrote about how she’s learned that January is never a productive month for her, and how she now approaches it as a period of “creative rest.” Matthew Quick in

There Will Be Mistakes

wrote about January being named for the Roman god Janus, who has two faces so he can look into the past and future at the same time—a hard and deliberate task. Susan Cain in

The Quiet Life with Susan Cain

wrote about directing attention to a truly quiet life this year.

These essays have helped me understand what I think many of us do when we make New Years resolutions: We start forming a picture of our future selves. Which is all well and good until we think that we should already be there now. We get impatient. We get angry. We become busy bunnies.

As I’ve worked to slow myself down this week, I keep coming back to two quotes.

The first is from Tom Lake, a novel by Ann Patchett that I recently finished. A single sentence in this fast-paced and wonderful read made me pause for a long time: “Every thing leads to the next thing.” A simple enough line, but there’s so much to it. One thing might look like a failure, but it leads to the next, which leads to the next. Life is a narrative. We can’t skip ahead. As much as I want my next novel written, my Substack essays planned, my trips for the year booked, my outdoor time scheduled, my house reordered, I can only do one thing at a time. And I won’t always know what the next thing is until I do this one.

The second is from the poem “Don’t Worry” by Mary Oliver. These words have calmed me down perhaps more than any others over the past few decades: “Things take the time they take.” And even more importantly: “Don’t worry.” These two short sentences remind me that it’s okay that a wonderful conversation with a favorite professor reordered things for me and my novel. I needed to write what I had to get to that point. I am still moving forward even by going back. And the writing will take the time it takes.  

Recognizing that things take the time they take does not mean doing away with goals and intentions; nothing would get done without them. But the frenzy and worry are no good. They keep me looking several steps ahead and not moving at all.

Instead, I take a breath.

I pour myself some tea.

I sit my worries down with the cup and ask myself a new question: “What small thing can I do today?”