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Catherine West

~ The Words Matter

Catherine West

Tag Archives: Patience

Books and Ducks and Copper Pots

10 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by Catherine West in Blogging, Faith, Life, Story telling

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Faith, History, Life, Living Well, Love, Patience, Stories

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When I was young, I laughed at the notion of antiques. Old stuff. Who in the world would want that? I wanted everything new. For me to be the first to use it. For us to make our own history.

But I hadn’t lived enough. Hadn’t traveled enough. Hadn’t cried enough.

I didn’t know.

Silver sits on the shelf and shines. Rarely used now, but we collect it because it’s worth something or so we’re told. I imagine the silver spread over long tables in elegant dining rooms where dinner conversations speak of plays and politics and playgrounds like Monaco or Cannes.

But the copper pots…they simmer over servants fires, feed the farmer with thick broth, fill the row houses with the warmth of  hot liquid courage on a cold night when darkness threatens danger. They tell the stories.

The true stories.

Would that we could hear them.

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Old books sing their own songs too. Where have they traveled over the many years of their existence? I imagine heads bowed over words, reading by flickering lamplight, wrestling to stay awake until the last page is turned or the lamp goes out. How many oceans have they crossed? How many hands have they passed through? How many souls delighted with the tales they tell?

Would that we could know.

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But the pots…

I imagine the mother and daughter cleaning. Cleaning the copper and dusting the books. Dust is removed easily enough. But the copper tarnishes. Stains. Loses it’s sparkle over time. You’ve got to put some effort in to see the shine.

“It’s just moving dirt around. I’ll never get it clean.” She is young, complaining. Would rather be outside. Black dirt streaks the pot she polishes. And the mother smiles.

She smiles because she knows. She has seen. She has heard.

She has lived.

Quietly she takes the cloth and rubs a little harder. Eventually the dirt dissolves and a soft glow turns to gleaming hope. And the girl smiles too.

The mother lays down the cloth and places a gentle finger beneath the girl’s chin. “All things can be made new with a little hard work and perseverance.” Perhaps the mother learned that from her own kin. Perhaps she learned it for herself, the hard way. But she knows it true and teaches the lesson.

And so the copper pots…shining, singing, sail through time and land somehow at my feet. Amidst my ducks and books and other well-lived treasures I have learned to cherish.

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And today I clean the copper.

Today I move the dirt around, slowly. Knowing that eventually, if I keep trying, I will see the shine.

We move through time too quickly, I think, as I wonder what stories these ancient items might tell. Aren’t we always in such a hurry to get the day done, to move on to the next great adventure? We forget to sit and savor. To study the bumps and dents and scars and scratches and remember where they came from.

We want to wake up shiny and new and ready to face the world and maybe take it down in one fell swoop. But wait. Don’t move too fast.

Don’t miss the story.

You’ll have to tell it one day.

One day a little hand may slip into yours and you’ll look down at luminous eyes that haven’t seen, precious ears that haven’t heard and a tiny heart with lots of growing room, and they will ask you to tell them your story.

Make it a good one.

Full of grace and hope and truth, faith-filled yet all at once wretched, because you too have been covered in dirt and grime.

But if we live it well, our story, we will know the ending. We will know by then, we have been cleaned, carefully, with such great love. Brought back to almost new, perhaps a little better than, under a tender touch, by the one who waits…waits for however long it takes, until you start to shine.

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So You Think You’re All That?

22 Thursday May 2014

Posted by Catherine West in Life, Reading, Story telling, Writing, Writing Life

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Patience, Perseverance, Struggle, Truth, Waiting, Writing Journey

“The world doesn’t revolve around you, you know.”

“Yes, it does.”
“No, actually, it doesn’t.”

“Yes it…wait, what?”

The problem with being a writer is simply this: We may develop the tendency to think we’re all that.

Not me, of course. I would never be so brazen as to assume the entire publishing world should come to a grinding halt and read my manuscripts RIGHT THIS SECOND BECAUSE I CAN’T STAND THIS WAITING ANYMORE!!! Yeah. Not me.

And so I wait.

Here’s the thing. I am not a patient person. True story. I also like getting what I want. Immediately. I blame my parents for that. They should have spanked me more. Or something. So here I am in this crazy profession where times moves slower than molasses running off the kitchen counter. This business where so much hinges on….what? I don’t even know. Timing? Luck? Fortitude? Brilliant writing? An editor having a good day? Maybe a combination of all those things. It’s a secret we’ll never know. Why some books are chosen and others aren’t.

I’ve ranted…um…mentioned the fact before…how some books are just not my cup of tea, yet they sell. They win awards. And I’m all like…

But really, so what? Good for those authors. Shows how much I know. Then this thought comes.

What if I simply got on with living?

Instead of worrying about what’s happening out there in that realm, that galaxy far far away…the place I have no control over…what if? I’d be less stressed, for sure. Probably be a nicer person to live with.

You know how hard this thing is. You reading this who’ve maybe just cut chapters out from your novel. Deleted pages you worked so hard to get right. You nodding your head because you get what I’m saying. You’ve been there. You might be there right now. You do it all because you want to succeed. You want that contract. You want…to be heard. To be noticed.

To be all that. 

Maybe you don’t, but sometimes I think I do. Sometimes I think if only…if only that email would come, that phone call, that long awaited “YES!”…then I could get on with things. Seriously. Somebody slap me.

See. I know it’s not true. I know that whether I am contracted or not, whether my words are printed or not, read or not, I won’t stop. These stories inside me won’t go away. It’s what I was born to do. Sure, I want to be published. Most writers do. But then, there’s the danger isn’t there, of focussing on that instead of simply enjoying the journey. That dream, goal or whatever you choose to call it, it can steal your joy. Make you forget why you’re doing what you’re doing. Why you started writing down the words in the first place. It can take away the sheer exhilaration of simply telling a story nobody else has.

Is it easy? No.

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But we do it anyway. We do it because we don’t have a choice. Sure, I could pack it up. Put all those hopes and dreams and aspirations high up on some shelf and pretend they’re not there…but sooner or later I’d come back to them. I’ve tried to quit. It doesn’t work.

I sit here day after day doing this thing because it’s who I am. And I’m being true to my calling. Obedient, if you will, to tell the stories, write it all down in a way that only I can. We are each unique in that. The telling. It’s something that took me a while to learn, to be okay with. I won’t ever write like Jodi Picoult. But she’ll never write like me. I don’t have to be like anyone. I just have to be me. And I’m not all that.

I’m just me.

So what if I simply show up, despite it all, get the words out and say to hell with the waiting, the wondering, the wanting…what if I just DO IT…maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s all I need to do. And maybe some days, the only person who really needs to read those words, is me.

 

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Why The Words Matter

Life speeds along and we do our best to catch up. Some days its hard to take a breath, let alone form a sentence that makes sense. Is anybody listening anyway? You might be surprised. The words matter. All of them.

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