I’m sitting in a cafe waiting for a friend, and I wonder how many hours / days / weeks of our lives we spend waiting?
We wait for friends and husbands (and yes, my husband spends a great deal of time waiting for me). We wait for family members, colleagues, business associates, people we’re doing a favour for, and people who are helping us. We wait in our homes, our cars, our offices, in cafes, bars, and restaurants, and we wait in airports, bus stations, and train stations. We wait for doctors, doctors never wait for us. We wait for dentists, hairdressers, beauty consultants, shop assistants, and we wait for plumbers,, electricians, builders, painters, heating guys and tree cutters. We wait all day for deliveries that never arrive.
We wait with anticipation and excitement – for the plane to arrive (or depart), for the far away friends and relatives to arrive, we wait for news – though these days we don’t have to wait as long – telling us the new baby has arrived, that we got the job, that someone we loved pulled through the operation. We wait eagerly for the play or movie to begin, for the next episode in our favourite television programme, for the new book to come out, the strawberries to arrive in the supermarket. We wait for holidays and trips, for independence, for adulthood, retirement, for freedom, or commitment.
We wait.
We wait with frustration for the traffic to move, the now overdue relatives to leave, the winter to end, the smelly guy to move away at the gym, and the rain to stop. We wait in lines at the bank, at airport check-in counters, at the supermarket, to get into the sale, for a coffee. We wait impatiently, with sore feet, but still we wait. If we have to wait too long, we wait angrily.
We wait fearfully for bad news, when the waiting holds the grief and disappointment at bay, as we wait with hope. Then we wait to recover, for normality to return or a new normal to arrive, for happiness to visit again.
We wait by the ocean, or on the top of a hill. We wait surrounded by concrete, looking at brick walls, smelling traffic fumes, listening to muzak. Or if we’re lucky we wait in nature, listening to birds, the wind in the trees, and the trickle of water in a stream nearby.
We wait for inspiration, for motivation, for maternal instincts, for patience, and wisdom.
We wait in a cafe in an old tugboat by the sea, and we write.
A Separate Life 