“What do I have to do to get on next year’s list???” I laughed and patted my friend on the shoulder, “I’ll see what I can do.”

We weren’t talking about an invite to an exclusive party, or a ticket for a once-in-a-lifetime trip, or a prescription for a miracle medication. We were talking about being a lucky recipient of my mom’s homemade chocolate covered pecans.

I can’t remember when this tradition began (eight years ago maybe? ten?), but every Christmas since, my mom has made close to twenty pounds of the treat, while the kids and I have been the proud elves charged with distribution. Teachers, coworkers, friends, hairdressers, mailmen have all received tins. Sam who ran the treehouse build. Liz who ran Kendall’s barn. Ms. Julien who ran Connor’s French program at Colgate.

Just three weeks ago, I made space for five tins in my carry-on suitcase to bring to my London-based friends, editor, and publisher.

Each and every human being who has ever received this offering 1) begs to stay on the distro list for next year, and 2) asks “what is the secret ingredient?”

For a while, the kids and I joked around and said it was crack.

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On the Sunday before Christmas, the kids, mom, and I cozied up in a booth at Uncle Julio’s. We’d driven to my mom’s neighborhood to share some Tex Mex and presents before she headed to Ohio for the holidays. Connor was being the best grandson and telling a very detailed story of giving his new coworkers the intoxicating pecans and watching them fall under the spell.

“So, grandma, when they asked me the secret ingredient, I told them it was love!”

(Geez, this kid!)

Mom tilted her head back and laughed. “Love, yes, but more precisely, patience. It takes a long time for me to clear my counters, set everything out, and make my assembly line. Then the baking process itself is really slow going. I’ve got to coat, stir, cook, wait… again and again and again. Then they have to cool for a while before I put them in their tins. That’s a whole other thing: bagging them up, laying the tissue paper, and tying the ribbon. While the ingredient list is not a mile long, the process itself is.”

The kids and I were slack-jawed listening to her describe how long this actually takes. And we were just as awe-struck by how she’s willing to do this for complete strangers, year after year after year.

Patience is not the ‘secret ingredient’ answer I expected. Nor, frankly, wanted.

I am not a particularly patient person. I’m more of a “start before you’re ready, get to the finish line ASAP, hope for the best” kind of gal. And in many parts of my life, I’ve been rewarded for that tendency toward bold (read: impatient) action. It got me promotions, opportunities, and probably a husband.

Patience in comparison has always felt so passive. You’re telling me I’m just supposed to wait for things to work out??

But mom wasn’t preaching passivity. She was saying there’s a certain alchemy in taking the time to do something right. No rushing, outsourcing, hacking your way to “close enough”. The proof is in the pecans.

And now that I’m thinking about it… my mom’s pecans have a lot in common with my writing.

I want it to be faster. I want more of my week free to spend on other things, like reading and hiking and noticing. I also want to be able to create more in less time: writing this weekly column, crafting essays for my favorite newspapers (a girl can hope!), buckling down on my pilgrimage book. I want more output with less time invested.

But three years into this new vocation, I have not found a single thing to accelerate the process that doesn’t produce drivel or dreck. I’ve tried brain-dumping to my editor Leona, voice-noting on my iPhone, bullet-pointing like my corporate days, begging the writing gods to deliver me a completed piece. So far, no luck.

So I always just end up writing my “old fashioned” way: taking a story, attempting to find the point, wandering off topic, changing my mind, deleting thousands of words, re-writing, second-guessing every other sentence. Plodding along until I find the point (or Leona points it out for me).

And yet, I wouldn’t give it up.

While I was busy scratching my head that mom spent so much time painstakingly making magic happen for strangers, I’d failed to realize I’ve been doing the exact same thing all along.

It’s hard for me to make the math add up on this one. In so many areas of my life I am Speedy Gonzalez, but in this one way I’m a bonafide Slowpoke Rodriguez (yep, I had to google that too).

How? Why??

I’m loathe it admit it… but actually I think, in this one way, patience feels good.

Quite simply, it feels good to focus on something steady and slow. In a world where so much is grabbing at our attention, is beyond our control, and in that special 2020s way, feels extra precarious… I know I can do this. I know that if I spend a few extra hours at my iPad grindstone, I can make someone’s day a little better. And I know I will breathe a little more deeply and more easily when I’m done.

Because I didn’t let the news cycle or the quarterly report hamster wheel convince me I needed to rush. I took the time it takes to make something great.

I have no plans to abandon my tendency towards momentum, but I’m going to enjoy those long mornings and slow afternoons writing and then deleting paragraphs a little bit more now. They pair perfectly with a tin of mom’s pecans.

To the time it takes,

Sue

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