Originally written Sept. 24, 2009.
Waiting. We’ve all done it. Do it. All the time, even when we don’t notice, we are. We wait. For food. For hunger. For the check to clear. For the alarm to go off, or the repetitive snooze, giving the illusion that we have more time, a ten minute do-over of sleep. For the person in front to finish so that we can wait for the cashier to ring us up or for someone to look up the answer to our question of where to find that one book by that one author who was on NPR last week. When we’re sick, we wait to be well; or if the sickness includes trouble with the gastric system, we wait out our denial that sooner or later, the contents which are giving our body so much grief (or so it is perceived), must be expelled by the seemingly anti-gravitational force that our bodies inherently know so well. We wait for it to be quiet. Wait for the sound of…sound. Bladders wait to be filled, and then to expel their contents. And bowels seem to wait longer for the latter, sometimes too long that we accept defeat, only to have to return to our prior position two minutes later. We wait for the mail to come, even when we’re not expecting anything of significance. Our waiting signifies our hope of pleasant surprise (or the dread of an unpleasant one). Wait to be seen. Wait to leave. Wait for the bus to come, and wait until our stop is next. Life is just a bunch of quick successions of waiting. A more cynical approach: ultimately, we’re all just waiting to die.
Before our birth, during our gestation, there was waiting. Everyone, of course, only looks at the perspective of the mother in this case. No one ever wonders what it’s like to be on the other side of things. Especially when considering the expulsion from the publicly waiting subject who is the primary focus of sympathy and encouragement. No one ever thinks about what it might be like to be literally squeezed through a canal of which there is no hope of backtracking, being grabbed by an unknown pair of hands, feeling the drastic change in temperature, waiting for orientation to come, all the while thinking: What the fuck?! This is what I waited nine months for?! Yep. And it doesn’t ever end. Maybe even after we die, it doesn’t end, not entirely. Maybe we wait to reach the light, or we wait for the blackness to stop somewhere. Wait for the empty to become full again. Wait for the stopping to stop.
There is a calm anxiety in waiting. Or an anxious calm. It manifests in the shifting of eyes, the checking of the watch or wall clock, the tuning of a radio, the weight being shifted onto either foot, the licking of lips, pacing softly and casually, the thinking-of-other-things, the tapping of fingers, a heavy exhalation of breath. A run through of scenarios, both tragic and comedic, beautiful and horrifying. Minds busy and never idle. Never still. Never waiting for Thought to come, only for specific thoughts in the hopes of defeating public embarrassment, writer’s block, or any kind of creative block, brain farts and the like. Thoughts that never wait for control to step in because they have a mind of their own.
Waiting teaches us how quickly things can change. We wait for that car or that person or that bus to round the bend. Just when it seems like we’ll spend eternity in our one spot, practically immobile due to unfailing desperate hope, in three seconds its over, and relief floods our veins momentarily.
I almost forgot. The most clichéd and western-ly universal experience: waiting for the phone to ring. Arguably a predicament made worse by the acquiring of mobile phones. We can be found, contacted, virtually anywhere those supposedly brain cancer causing waves are strongest. And now there’s texting, so that you can talk without using your voice, only using those opposable thumbs which evolution has blessed us with. Receiving a text is almost as exciting as receiving a phone call. The beep, buzz, or even ring-tone goes off and our little hands reach into our pocket or purse, possibly asking our present company to excuse us for a moment, as curiosity has a higher priority than the conversation at hand, as we check to see who sent us a message that they couldn’t bother to say or ask in person. And sometimes we frantically answer, our thumbs clicking away on our miniature keyboards of communication, setting off the cycle once more, this time for the person on the other end. But a phone call can be so much more satisfying, gratifying, because the person on the other end is taking the time to actually want to talk to you, however briefly. Or maybe their thumbs were just tired. Either way, nothing can compare to that relief of seeing the name on the caller-i.d., and answering knowing who is on the other end. Even if we’re mad because they seem to have neglected us and made the waiting last longer than we feel appropriate, there is a sense of gratitude that fills us before we tersely answer, expecting an apology and holding onto a back up of venom if none ensues. We may not always have the guts to spit it out, but it’s there, just in case.
In the meantime. A euphemistic phrase for “waiting.” It means, “while you wait for such and such to happen, you should…” We’re constantly finding ways to ease the ache of waiting. Some call it reading a book. Some call it snacking or noshing. Or going for a ciggy break. Or chatting. Or checking email. Or picking up a hobby. Or making a phone call. Or listening to music or singing to yourself. Doing the dishes, vacuuming, tidying up. Going to a party. Dancing. Drinking. Recreational drug use. Sex. Hooking up. It’s all just entertainment. A way to fill the space, making use of Time. Using Time as a commodity, when in actuality, it’s been using us all along.
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