At the west end of our garden, we have three enormous Chinese elms. They tower some thirty feet, a little cafe table and chairs tucked in their shade.

A month ago, the tree on the right began to pump out fresh spring leaves. When my pugs and I strolled our street, we saw that the neighbor's elms were all getting leafy, too.

But our other two elms remained skeletal, as naked as they'd been since fall began. I looked up at their bare branches and started to worry. What's going on with them? Are they dead?

Every morning, I walked down to the elms for a check-in. Still nothing. Meanwhile, the tree on the right was groaning under its greenery, packed with chirping birds. I lay awake at night, wondering if I should call a tree surgeon to cut them down. How would I replace these enormous trees? Can you buy a full-grown tree? Will it survive? I felt sad, thinking I'd let down these lovely trees entrusted to my care.

On yesterday's morning check, I noticed that both trees, overnight, had finally exploded with life. Every branch sported tender little leaves and shoots. I breathed an enormous sigh of relief.

This weekend, I wandered into the kitchen where Jenny was preheating the oven to make a pizza for dinner. "There's something wrong with this damned thing," she said. "It's only gotten to 100 degrees." I said I'd call a repairman on Monday and went to wait on the patio. Fifteen minutes later, Jenny appeared with a piping hot pizza. "Did you use the toaster oven?" I asked. "No, the stove was fine. I was just too impatient," she replied.

I had a blood test in January, and my platelets were low. My doctor said we would just wait and do another test in three months. I spent those months in a hypochondriacal panic, Googling "low platelets" at 3 AM and imagining the worst, leukemia? I had another test last week — all was back to normal. Dr. Ungar was nonplussed. "Yeah, the body's like that. Nothing to worry about. You're healthy as an ox."

Three separate incidents, all with the same lesson: I am catastrophically impatient. And I'm not alone. We've become a society allergic to waiting.

I order Sumi ink from Amazon at breakfast, and it arrives before lunch. I complain when Netflix makes me scroll through three menus to find a movie. My phone feels sluggish if an app takes more than two seconds to open.

I get comments on my YouTube channel that my 11-minute drawing tutorials are too long. "I watched this video, and I still can't draw," they complain.

Do you remember the Gallo wine commercials, "We will sell no wine before its time"? Good things take a good time.

Drawing is like my Chinese elms. You can't rush it. You need to tend it, feed it, water it, prune it, and wait for it.

If results don't magically appear, that doesn't mean you're dead. It means that creation is a surprise and a miracle. The fact that we hairless apes, a few generations off the savanna, can take a stick, dip it in ink, move our clumsy fingers, and turn a piece of paper into art — that's the real magic.

It's unnerving how quickly my drawing skills atrophy without practice. But with a bit of practice, my fingers get limber and my lines grow confident once again. I can keep working at these skills for decade after decade, which is the reason to keep doing it. It's not an instant buzz that will evaporate. It's a rich, full-bodied experience that gets deeper the more I pour into it.

Sure, I can get that bottle of ink delivered in a few hours, but it will take me months to drain it, to explore its possibilities, to learn its lessons. I can put my sketchbook on my lap and time will stop, the universe will flow, beauty will appear and grow — that's the point of doing it. Not to end up with a pretty picture but to have the transformative experience of creating it.

If drawing were a skill I could pick up in minutes, I wouldn't get that rich satisfaction that comes from investing good chunks of my life to cultivate it.

I am so spoiled by the miracles of our age of instant gratification. When I pull a gizmo from my pocket and go anywhere, reach anyone, and learn anything in a heartbeat, I no longer see it as miraculous. It's my birthright. With each day, each click, I lose the ability to wonder and marvel, I take the world for granted, and lose my connection to the rhythms of life, the seasons, the orbits, the ineluctable ticking of my days here. But nature—and art—operate on their own timelines. I need to stop, breathe, appreciate, and be grateful for the slow unfolding of life's processes that no Amazon Prime subscription can expedite.

This morning, I took my coffee and sketchbook down to sit beneath my patient elms. Their leaves are fuller now, casting dappled shadows across my page. I began to draw them—not frantically rushing to capture every detail, but slowly, deliberately, letting my pen wander as naturally as their branches. Just as these trees needed time to reveal their spring glory, my drawing emerged gradually, stroke by stroke. The trees had taught me their lesson: the most meaningful growth—in nature, in art, in life—happens in its own perfect time.

Your pal,

Danny

P.S. If you’re in the area, I would love to invite you to a future meetup in Phoenix to draw and chat in real life — and make new friends in my new home state. If you'd be interested in joining, let me know by completing this form, and I'll send you details as they come together!