Learning to Wait

July 2025

I’ve always been impatient. When I try something new, I want to be good at it immediately.  I want results, growth, beauty—now. I waited patiently through the winter months for the return of the sun so I could continue experimenting with creating wet cyanotypes. I dove into the process, only to find it unpredictable and messy. The images didn’t turn out the way I imagined.  The colors shift strangely, the paper wrinkled or fell apart, and the details got lost. I made mistake after mistake, and that voice in my head told me to quit, convinced that I don’t know what I am doing, that I am doing it all wrong and I’m wasting my time. 

But wet cyanotypes are unpredictable. They require time, sunlight, humidity, and a certain willingness to surrender control. I’m learning that beauty in this process emerges not through perfection, but through play and patience. It’s about letting go of the outcome, allowing nature and chemistry and chance to collaborate with my hands. And it’s hard. It’s hard to sit with imperfection. Hard to trust that something meaningful might still emerge from a pile of “failed” prints. 

Yet, with each round of trial and error, I’m starting to understand that patience isn’t passive—it’s an active practice of curiosity and faith. Mistakes are part of the learning. The waiting, the unexpected results, the surprises—that’s where the real beauty hides. I'm beginning to believe that what matters most isn’t getting it “right,” but staying long enough to see what might bloom when I finally let go.