nathanupchurch.com/content/blog/patience.md

title	description	date	tags	synopsis	imageURL	imageAlt	mastodon_id
Patience	Learning about patience through an incense-making miscalculation.	2024-01-10	Quick Thoughts Incense Incense Making	Learning about patience through an incense-making miscalculation.	/img/dragons_blood_incense_copy.avif	A small piece of a coreless, Japanese-style incense stick burning in a black cast-iron burner.	111732713202024407

Some time ago, maybe a year or so, I extruded a batch of incense sticks from some ingredients I thought might go well together: sandalwood, cinnamon, dragon's blood resin, a touch of Hojari frankincense for acidity, and some tonka bean for sweetness, if I recall correctly. After leaving the sticks to dry overnight, I was disappointed to see that they didn't stay lit; the stick would shrink behind the ember, and it would fizzle out in short order. Even worse, the little scent I was able to detect during the short burn was terrible: acrid and smoky. Dejected, I put the sticks away, returning to attempt to burn a small fragment every few days or so before I lost interest entirely.

A few months later, the tube of crooked red incense sticks caught my eye, and I once again attempted to burn a stick. To my surprise, it stayed lit throughout the entire burn. The fragrance had transformed also, from leafy-campfire to a simple, warm, slightly sweet, and medicinal fragrance. While this was enough of an improvement to encourage me to light one every now and then, I remained disappointed that the fragrance was so far from what I'd hoped to achieve. After half-heartedly burning each stick in the little plastic tube that housed them over a period of weeks, the tube disappeared into a basket on the shelf beneath my coffee table amidst a mess of bundled cables and game-controllers, never to be seen again – until just a few days ago.

While rustling around in search of a controller, I discovered the thin plastic tube, noticing two small fragments of incense sliding about as I lifted the tube from the basket. As I lit the first fragment this morning, I was met with a wonderfully clear impression of dragon's blood, uplifted by the bright citrus of Hojari frankincense, on a sweet, warm, woody base; my incense had turned out well after all. Unfortunately, the recipe, written on the tube in dry-erase marker, had long worn off; thinking the batch was a failure, I hadn't recorded it anywhere else. Burning those last two fragments today was bittersweet; all I had needed to do was wait. I'm frustrated about a number of things here, but there is something oddly gratifying about the situation. By failing to record the recipe, I got to experience something rare and unique today. In those peaceful, fragrant moments, I experienced something lovely for the first and last time — and I learned a thing or two about patience.