Carlos Fentanes

Conversations with Virgin Mary

Friday, May 26

Waiting idly is a waste of time. Use these moments for your benefit instead, try practising presence.

Tonight, you’ll have guests, so you decided to make something special for supper, Tacos al Pastor: First the marinade—twenty-four hours soaking pork loin in dried chiles—then another twenty-four hours sous-viding, because good things, as your grandmother used to say, don’t hurry. By the time you’re dicing onions and tomatoes, folding in cilantro and avocado, saving a little for pico de gallo, you’ve entered that quiet, focused state that comes when you know you’re doing something well. Two frypans go on the stove: one for the meat, one for the tortillas. You light a candle to soften the kitchen’s aromas. It’s all timed to perfection. This is a hard task that takes several hours, and you did your best.

And then you wait.

Your guests are nowhere. One minute passes. Then ten. Then thirty. You can hear the tortillas cooling in the other room. And the question begins: Should I call them? Should I keep waiting? Are they even coming? You did everything right, everything you could control; the next move isn’t yours. But what to do in the meantime? Wait idling?

You can fill those small moments with meaning, Try meditation, even a 10 minute meditation helps, Yoga? Stretch your body, it doesn’t have to be an exhausting routine, just stretching up. Try to fill those small moments with introspection, do not use your phone with its unending scrolling on Facebook, use these moments for you.

The week’s task is about exactly this—instead of waiting and check your phone every minute, fill these moments with introspection, don’t wait idly, fill the space with presence and practice.

My messenger will arrive too, wait for the signal. It will be obvious once you find it.

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The odd thing is how literally life obeys these metaphors.

The very next day—Saturday—I came back from fencing lessons with my son. My wife works until 2:00 p.m., so I decided to surprise her with lunch. Nothing fancy, just something warm for when she walked through the door. I had everything timed to the second. At 2:00, the table was set.

And then I waited. And waited. She didn’t arrive until 3:30.

“Okay,” I thought, “time to do the task.” It sounded simple enough.

I was wrong.

I sat on the living room floor, trying to meditate, but Lulu—my dog—started scratching my leg, begging for attention. I moved away. Then I reached for my phone and instinctively opened Instagram. I started scrolling.

Don’t scroll, the letter had said.

So I stopped. And there, on the sofa, was a book my son had left behind: Alice in Wonderland. I opened it to a random page:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

 “I don’t much care where—” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

“—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

I felt exactly like Alice—lost, unsure of the direction, but asking advice from a cryptic cat? Possibly the last creature you’d want navigating your life.

The next morning—Sunday—I was invited to run with Jorge. I hurried, put on my sneakers, and walked to his house. As usual, their neighbor’s cat, Virgo, was waiting at the door as if she lived there. I knocked.

“You’re late again! You’re keeping me waiting” Jorge said as Virgo scratched his leg, meowing her own commentary.

After the run, we returned and he handed me a glass of green juice while pouring milk for Virgo.

“So,” he said, “how was your week? Did you finally submit your work, or are you still waiting for signs from the Universe?”

“No, actually it was productive,” I told him. “I’ve been methodical. I filtered open calls, set rules: no entry fees above forty U.S. dollars, and if a venue rejects me three times, I move on. Three strikes—it’s out. I applied to winter shows in the States and Europe. And now I’m waiting for results. The waiting is killing me. I check my phone every five minutes, hoping for an email—or a collector—that never comes.”

“Creating rules is good,” he said. “Makes decisions easier. But waiting is a waste of time. You did your part. Let it go. By the way, what’s your best result this year?”

“NADA,” I dare to say after a pause.

“What? Nothing? That can’t be right.”

He started to complain about my idly in art when I interrupt him, “You’re misunderstanding. NADA—the New Art Dealers Alliance. One of my pieces was chosen for a group show with member galleries. Only around twenty artists were selected.”

He stared at me. “That’s fantastic. How did you do it?”

“I didn’t overthink it. I picked a strong piece, wrote an artist statement, submitted… and then forgot about it.”

“You didn’t wait idly for the results?”

“Actually… no. I kept working. I wasn’t anxious or hopeful. I just did my part and moved on.”

Jorge was staring at the cat and asked her, “What do you think, Virgo? Isn’t it obvious?” The cat held his gaze with that slow, superior blink cats give when they think they are the ones humoring you. She held his gaze.

“You see?” he said, turning back to me with a small smile. “That’s the pattern. That’s your clue. Don’t wait. Don’t get anxious. Do your work and trust.”

He paused, scratching Virgo under the chin while she purred triumphantly.

“You know how I started writing those letters?” he continued. “I was sitting in a waiting room, doing nothing, just… idling. It was unbearable. The doctor was running late—really late—and I was trapped in that sterile little room with my thoughts circling like vultures. At some point I realized I couldn’t stand it anymore. I needed to do something, anything, to take back the moment.”

He leaned back on the couch.

“Can you imagine how it feels,” he said softly, “sitting in a waiting room knowing the doctor will come out only to tell you there’s no cure? To tell you your life is going to change, and not for the better? It’s like being locked inside your own body. And yet… even then, you can still choose how to spend the minutes.”

He looked at me again—directly, this time.

I thought of my mother. She carries this knowledge quietly—the certainty that there’s no cure, that each day will dim a little more than the last, that she is simply waiting for the end. It feels unbearably unfair. I keep wondering if there is anything left for me to do, or if my role is only to wait with her. Christmas is near, and she seems to be holding on for one last gathering of her sons. Waiting…

He kept talking, “So I decided not to wait idly. I wrote. I created something out of those minutes. And now I’m passing that to you. You can’t control outcomes, but you can control the presence you bring to the waiting.”

Virgo was at the door, meowing. Jorge let her out. We watched her walk across the lawn toward her actual home—the neighbor’s house—like she’d never belonged to him at all.

“I booked a flight to Guadalajara,” I said. “For Christmas. One week with my mother.”

Jorge nodded. “Don’t wait idly,” he said.