There is no rush, but there is a window
On the importance of timing in creative endeavours (and life)
Picking blackberries for crumble from the hedgerow yesterday, as the last wisps of summer light faded and autumn whispered its imminent return, I heard these words in my head: There is no rush, but there is a window.
It’s not the first time I have heard them - that was some years back, standing in my greenhouse looking at the planting dates on the back of a seed packet. But I think it is no coincidence that these words returned on the sixth anniversary of the publication of my book Wabi Sabi, which honours the natural rhythm of the seasons, celebrates simple living, and draws our attention to the beauty of imperfection in the world and in ourselves.
So much about life these days seems rushed, but it is a false pressure. There is actually very little that absolutely must get done today. We just have a tendency to tell ourselves otherwise, or believe others when they insist it is the case. Having said that, I do believe that while there is no desperate rush, there is a window for things. Nature shows us this.
We could have put off our foraging until tomorrow, or next week perhaps, and we would have still gathered enough blackberries for our apple crumble. But wait a month and they will be gone. It’s the same with practical things, like a twenty year mortgage. I could just about get one now, in my late forties, but the window for a thirty-year loan has already closed, and a few years from now I’d be lucky to get a fifteen-year one. And dare I say it, I think it’s the same with our creative projects.
This might sound controversial, because we often hear ‘It’s never too late’ as words of encouragement. To be clear I agree it is rarely too late to start something new – writing a novel, learning to paint, starting a Substack for example - and the wisdom of years of lived experience can make us better placed to infuse such activities with depth, as well as giving us access to learnings from those who have gone before us. But I also think it is true that there is a window of peak flourishing for any particular endeavour, when all the circumstances and conditions – internal and external - come together to give us the best chance of making something work. And because everything is always changing, I think that is a window which opens and then, sooner or later, closes.
The week Wabi Sabi was published was absolute chaos in my house. It was August six years ago. My children were small (3 and 4) and excitable, and we were just about to move house to a new part of the country where we knew no-one. There were boxes everywhere, and I would pack up a room, do an interview, then pack up another. Wabi Sabi came out on the Thursday and I spent the day touring London bookshops with my editor, delivering Japanese sweets to lots of friendly booksellers.
Just a few days later my eldest daughter and I took a two-hour train journey and stayed overnight in a pub so she could attend her first day of primary school, even though we didn’t yet have anywhere to live. Then we came back, finished packing up the house ready for the removal van, and watched Mr K run a marathon. On the Monday he set off early to drive west to Devon with the girls to arrive in time for the second day of school, while I took a taxi east to Heathrow and boarded a plane to California, to teach at 1440 Multiversity. Add in the jet lag and it was wild, and disorientating. Hardly the ingredients for a stellar book launch, but such is life sometimes.
The truth is, although Wabi Sabi was well received, it was not an instant bestseller. (Thank goodness it did not rely on that chaotic launch week!) Rather it has been a slow burn, growing in popularity by word-of-mouth as yoga teachers read from it in classes and on retreats, friends recommended it to friends, therapists recommended it to patients, parents gifted it to their adult children, and more and more people wrote to tell me they were off to Japan after reading it, and then posting about their adventures, book in tow, on social media. Although Wabi Sabi launched quietly, to my continued astonishment it has kept on selling at a rate of one book every ten minutes for six years, topping more than a third of a million sales – whaaaat?!
Just yesterday a man sent me a message saying that Wabi Sabi inspired him to take a career break and go to live in Japan for several months. His experience was so profound that he got a tattoo to remind himself of it. He sent me a photo of that tattoo – it was the illustration from the cover of my book.
At moments like that I don’t really know what to say. It’s certainly not something I ever envisaged when sitting in Shōrenin, a beautiful temple at the foot of the Higashiyama mountains in Kyoto, one cold December night seven years ago, trying to decide what to write as a sample chapter to offer to publishers who might take a risk on Wabi Sabi.
Not long before, in September 2017, a few months after my first book Freedom Seeker had been published, I was at a noodle bar in London with my agent Caroline, when she hit me with it, ‘So what have you got?’ She was asking about ideas for a second book. I had been carrying around thoughts of a Japan-related non-fiction book for nearly two decades, all through my studies for two degrees and many years living and working there, but I had never spoken it aloud. It never felt ready. Or perhaps I never felt ready. But something had shifted recently, something I cannot describe any better than ‘a feeling’ which told me that perhaps the time was finally right.
I told Caroline about the book that would become Wabi Sabi, sharing how I had a sense that a wave of ideas related to Japanese wellness were coming, as indeed happened. I still don’t know how I knew, but sometimes that’s how it works. Many things had come together in that moment – the idea, the knowledge that I had already written one book so could probably do it again, and something in the zeitgeist that felt like a window of time opening. ‘Sounds great,’ Caroline said. ‘Can you get a proposal to me by November?’
Several weeks later, with a few publishers interested but waiting on a sample chapter before they would offer, I used my own money to return to Japan to write it in-situ.
I had cycled to Shōrenin that night, breath visible on the evening air, to see the gardens illuminated. I had picked up a fallen momiji leaf, blushing burgundy and curling at the edges, and felt a space in my heart open up. I felt quiet contentment, tinged with melancholy in the knowledge that the fleeting moment would never return. In that instant, I understood something about wabi sabi that led the way in to the rest of the book.
Wabi Sabi completely changed my trajectory as a writer, in ways I could never have anticipated. It opened my eyes to the ways books can connect people all over the world. I had no idea what would happen once it left my hands, and I certainly did not expect it to take me on a new quest – the life-changing pilgrimage I undertook in writing Kokoro, but it did.
(As an aside, I certainly do not credit myself with all the success of Wabi Sabi. Far from it. Besides the amazing teams at Piatkus, my literary agent Hardman & Swainson and all my foreign publishers, I am deeply grateful to all the booksellers and librarians who have championed it, and all the readers who have loved, lent and gifted it. If you were one of them, THANK YOU.)
I signed the book deal for Kokoro soon after Wabi Sabi was published, but the universe had other plans, and as Japan closed its borders for two years my research was confined to desktops and libraries, and the writing went on in the background of other things. Thinking about this now I cannot help but wonder that perhaps the window wasn’t yet open. In the end it took five years and two devastating losses for Kokoro to become the book it is, a book shaped by grief and an acute awareness of impermanence. The strangest thing is that the final version is still surprisingly close to the original proposal, even though I had no idea of the events that would unfold.
So how do we know if ‘now’ is the time for something? I think that is a question that gets answered for us, in the way things fall together.
‘Now’ is this moment in time and space. ‘Now’ is this life stage. ‘Now’ is this point in history. Every moment offers a new combination of these three levels of ‘now’, and births a new opportunity. This particular moment in time, right here, right now, with the people in our orbit, offers a set of opportunities. The particular life stage we are in, with its particular circumstances, and our particular vault of wisdom and experience gathered up to this point, offer a set of opportunities. And the particular state of the world right now similarly offers a set of opportunities, perhaps related to the challenges of humanity, or the opportunities of emerging technology, or something else that until this particular moment we were not even aware of. There are opportunities everywhere, and it is even more exciting when you consider that the constellation of these opportunities is always changing, with each arising ‘now’.
Windows are always opening and closing, including the vast yet limited window that is a human lifespan. There is no rush (life is long), but there is a window (life is short, and does not last forever). This sounds quite grim, but really it’s not. It’s a gentle reminder to get cracking with that thing we have been dreaming of, to tune in to the zeitgeist, to listen to our hearts and take action when it feels right. It’s gentle because it says ‘there’s no rush’, but it is firm because it says ‘but don’t take forever, because you haven’t got that long.’
So this week I am going to spend some time thinking about what particular window might be open right now, and what I should crack on with knowing that although there is no rush, there is that window and it will, at some point, close. What can I start to give more attention to now, or very soon, knowing that it’s OK not to drop everything and dive right in, but also to acknowledge that I don’t want to delay starting for so long that the window closes.
How about you, I wonder? What project/friendship/new chapter or opportunity have you been dreaming of, for which the window might be opening right now? I’d love to know.
Beth Xx
JOIN MY EARLY AUTUMN LIVE WRITING CIRCLE
An invitation for you! Autumn is a potent time for writing. If you’d like to join me for a gorgeous Live Writing Circle this coming Saturday 7 September, where we will gather with writers from around the world and spill what is in our heads and hearts onto the page, then be sure to join my private writing community SoulCircle before then. As a standalone workshop this kind of Circle would be £29 but it is included for free with your membership, which is just £7.99 a month (for year-round weekly writing inspiration, quarterly group mentoring, regular Live Writing Circles and more). To join just go to bethkempton.substack.com/subscribe and choose Monthly to try it out or Annual to get two months for free. I can’t wait to welcome you into our wonderful community.
HOW TO GET FREE ACCESS TO AUTUMN LIGHT
Kokoro will be published in the US and Canada on October 1. I am offering FREE access to a beautiful two-week writing class, Autumn Light, as a gift to anyone who pre-orders the US edition (or makes a NEW purchase of the UK edition between now and September 30). Find out more and book your free course place here.
Images: Top and penultimate images by Holly Bobbins. Japan photos by Beth Kempton. Bottom images by Unsplash.
A boost to actually write today! And one book every ten minutes for six years that is amazing 🤩!!!
Thank you 🙏🏼. X
Beth, thank you for this. Such a timely essay for me me to read. I've made the decision to move halfway across America, from Nebraska to Virginia, not for a job, but because I want to. I've always wanted to live in a place full of the history I love - early America and the Revolutionary War - and on the cusp of 50, I decided now was the time. The window is open. I will move at the end of the year because if not now, when? It is terrifying and exciting at the same time. I've never lived very far from my family, so this will be a test, of sorts, before I make the REALLY big move: to the UK for that is where my heart most desires to be. Baby steps, but steps nevertheless.