In the right place at the right time

Dear Reader,

The rain had stopped by morning, and we went for a walk. The sun came out briefly and made the hundreds of water drops that clung to the branches shine like diamonds. There are droopy daffodils at the house at the end of the road and more spring flowers (almond blossoms?) in the trees. As we walk under the oak tree, I open my old umbrella, the one with the golden polka dots, to shelter myself from the water dripping from its branches. It’s a gorgeous morning, and if I had a study with a teak desk and bookshelves, I would be there right now, writing. I would write for hours and emerge a little after lunchtime to eat a meal someone had left for me. That, I feel, is how real writers write. My writing, on the other hand, is done in bits and pieces, sentences tapped quickly into my phone while brewing chai, or after parking the car and in the few seconds before an appointment. I am writing in my head when I take pictures or watch the birds fly and as I procrastinate because I terrify myself by wanting to be seen. I despair of this kind of writing. If only I could write like Henry Higgins from the movie My Fair Lady¹: in a study with a sturdy wooden desk, maple or teak, and while wearing a hat, smoking a pipe, twirling my mustache², and staring into the distance contemplatively.

I can keep dreaming about this perfect scenario (minus mustache), but at some point, I have to let go of the dream and just write, and for that it has helped to have a few tools. I try to get my writing done as soon as I get up in the morning. I’ve restarted morning pages. Publishing on Substack every week is also part of the weekly writing routine. All these small actions help me move out of my writing dreams and into making them more concrete.

You could say it’s always the right time to take action, however small, and yet there is this other idea of right timing, when the same action suddenly produces a larger and more significant breakthrough. I’m fascinated by this idea of fortuitous timing when an action produces outsize result. Are there times in our life when progress is guaranteed or exponential? Or is it just a result of cumulative action? Like a battering ram, we keep hitting at the obstruction until one last blow and it gives way, and we ascribe more value to that last blow?

Is it possible to align action and timing? If yes, do you know how?

Dear Reader, I’d love to hear where, in your life, you feel paralyzed or slowed down by “how it should be”, what tools have worked for you, and what you think about the concept of right timing.

Best,

Priya

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1. I don’t know if he actually wrote anything, though he did have a lovely study/library.

2. Henry Higgins didn’t have a mustache.