Don’t wait.
On courage, readiness and my friend Jen.
I don’t know anyone who actually enjoys waiting. But when it comes to making art, and spending time pursuing something important — though scary and vulnerable — I know plenty of artists who will joke about how easy it is to suddenly find a thousand other things to do with their time, other than making their art. We don’t necessarily equate this deferment with ‘waiting’; at best, we’re just ‘working up into it’. At worst, it’s procrastination. We know procrastinating is bad, but we seldom characterise it as a self-imposed waiting to feel ‘ready’.
What does ‘ready’ even mean?
First, a story about Jen.
I first met Jen in a Write Like a Grrrl class in January 2019, where we traded stories and gave each other feedback, and ended up realising we had completely misaligned reading preferences. I realised quickly that Jen was particular, and singular, in what she liked and disliked, and wasn’t afraid to state her opinion on such matters. While we often differed on what we enjoyed reading, we shared a love of house plants. When lockdown restrictions began to lift, she came over to my place for tea, and I gave her a bunch of my house plants that I couldn’t take with me in a move across London.
