I hate to wait. I hate to wait in line. I hate to wait for my coffee to brew. I hate to wait for the shower water to heat up. I hate it all, including people who like to wait which means nobody because I can’t think of a single person who likes to wait, unless he or she waits tables. Even then, I bet it’s a pain in the patootie.
Is there ANYTHING worth waiting for? Pumpkin spice lattes? Wake up and smell the overkill. Graduation? Take the diploma and wait even more. Your wedding night? Wait to sober up.
Good grief. Am I three years old? Sounds like it, but I’ve been thinking a lot about waiting ever since I read the review of a new book — And Finally — by retired brain surgeon, Henry Marsh. Marsh thought he understood illness, but then was diagnosed with advanced prostrate cancer and learned that ” . . . one of the worst aspects of being a patient is waiting — waiting in drab outpatient waiting areas, waiting for appointments, waiting for the results of tests and scans” which left him, “so anxious and unhappy, feeling abandoned.”
Waiting is serious, grown-up business. My pastor friend, Carol, believes that waiting may be difficult because it leaves us with “a sense of wondering if we’ve been abandoned by whatever human or divine forces that control life that’s beyond our control. Has the doctor forgotten me? Has God forgotten me? Does God . . . or anyone . . . care?” Carol also cites, “the misery of helpless unknowing, the inability to plan, strategize, work towards a resolution; [it] always seems easier to handle a problem, no matter how difficult, if we have some sense of what needs to be done or of what can be done.” Wise words. I cling to them in a continuing effort to develop a more mature attitude toward waiting. I’m still working on it, but in the past few years — right in front of my eyes — Mother Nature has demonstrated the astonishing beauty of waiting.
Waiting for the sunrise is not the same as waiting for biopsy results. This “the-glass-is-always-half-empty” woman gets it. However, when I wait to witness sunrises, even I wonder about the beauty and hope that awaits beyond the horizon I cannot see.
Once a month, I plan to post sunrise photos that capture Mother Nature’s take on the beauty of waiting. In fact, I’ve added a whole new category to Spark and Spitfire which is the title of this post. Wait for it. Yes, wait for it, because this is what it can look like:
I drafted this yesterday afternoon, January 25, which would have been my sister, Karen’s 68th birthday. There you are, Karen — beyond the far horizon. Continue to rest in peace.
I did not mention that my father has been dying for at least two years. I’ve run out of words. Waiting for him to die has been a dark cloud hovering over my life even during sunrises. I can only imagine what it’s been like for my sister, Lauren, his primary caregiver.
I often think of my mother on my sunrise meditations, because she had a capacity for awe — mostly about flowers and the evening fireworks at Disney World. My father did not. I inherited all of my impatience from him. He wouldn’t last a minute in an open field without the Sports page, the TV remote and his latest Joel Osteen book.
Interestingly, however, when I was a kid, he would disappear into the woods behind our house for hours on Sunday afternoons. We never knew where he went. I followed him one day. I found him sitting/leaning against a guardrail fence, looking into the distance. I had no idea what he was seeing, thinking about or waiting for. I said nothing and turned around and headed home. I knew he wasn’t seeing or waiting for me or any other member of his family. Most likely he was steeling himself against the disruption to his circumscribed life that would assault him when he walked into the house he lived in.
This post, and your subsequent comment, made me tear up this morning. I find my feelings around waiting to be a form of shame. Like, “I should be better at this.” My inner child surfaces. Not so much in lines at stores or daily life duties, but around life changes. Things I want to happen faster or sooner than they are ready. I think this is why I suck at DIY projects and cooking. It takes patience for the results of our work to be complete. This is why I focus so much on the word “pause” to ground me. I am still “waiting” to grow up, I guess. Love you.
“I find my feelings around waiting to be a form of shame.” a very vulnerable insight, Kelly. I identify with you in terms of life changes like “growing up.” My inner child surfaces all the time, mostly in intimate relationships. I was shamed constantly when I was a kid — mostly for expressing myself. Now I have to continue to wait, wait, wait, wait, wait to complete a lifelong writing project that, of course, is me expressing myself. I spend so much energy tuning out my mother’s voice. I have to work very hard to hear my own voice and not hers, and even then, it hovers between being overly sentimental or just plain vindictive. I keep plugging away, waiting, plugging away, waiting, plugging away, waiting.
Love you, too.
These magnificent photos will certainly help me, and I suspect all your readers(!) the next time I/we wait…for whatever! That delayed phone call. That package that should have arrived yesterday. That doctor appointment that might or might not hold answers to a puzzle in my life.
Your photos carry such wisdom! As do your reflections on them, reminding us of that possible “beauty and hope that awaits beyond the horizon.” Thank you!
You’re welcome, Carol. And thank you for saying that my photos “carry such wisdom” — which I attribute to outside forces and influences such as yours. I am grateful for your own wise contributions to this post. Yeah, I hate to wait, but I love reading your perspectives on it. xoxo
Thank you for this post. It is a gift to hear two friends’ voices here! I’m with you in ‘waiting is tough’ but beauty-in-the-wait is a gift. Thank you for your photos. They are eloquent. Dramatic. Heaven-sent to those looking hard and longing for Light.
You are very welcome, Elaine. You were very much on my mind and in my heart when I compiled this post yesterday. “Eloquent.” “Dramatic.” “Heaven-sent.” Thank you, though, again, I am just the witness. But I AM waiting! xoxo
Clearly this post is touching on something deep for all of us. I am struggling with words here–something about the certainty of the sunrise–whether “glorious” or not–and waiting as a person for something which is uncertain. I wonder whether waiting is a human invention–whether being present is the gift. Then whatever happens next is a gift too–like the gorgeous sunrises you show us. Thanks for the muddle which I will carry in my heart in the back acre and let it grow in the dark.
Charlotte — love that you are so open with your “struggling”. Makes me feel better. I’m also pondering that waiting could be a “human invention.” Hmmmmmmm.
“Muddle” — love this word. I don’t know many people who have the courage to carry “muddle” in their hearts, let alone wait while it grows in the dark. Seems more like a divine intervention, not a human invention which is most likely your point. xoxo
Sharon,
Your pictures are stunning, as always. You find the best locations for your picture taking, as though you are led to the perfect spot. It’s interesting that you say you are inpatient when you have to wait in most situations, yet you are quite patient when it comes to sun rises. It seems that maybe you enjoy waiting for them. Perhaps it is because you know after the many, many sun rises you have seen, there is always something worthwhile seeing. Please, keep those pictures coming – they make me feel so good!
Thank you AGAIN, Laura for reading and commenting! I so appreciate your taking the time . . . AND for your continued appreciation of Mother Nature. That her sunrises make you feel good no doubt inspires her to double her efforts, so look out!
Thank you, Sharon. There is waiting that is anticipation, as for a sunrise or a baby to be born and also waiting that is mundane, like waiting in a long line or in traffic. The more excruciating forms of waiting you’ve touched on with waiting for a diagnosis or for someone to die by inches. I would add to the excruciating form witnessing the slow torturous path of the democratic process. People often die before decisions are made that could have saved them. It is hardest to give ignorance a seat at the table in democracy and to wait for it to be exposed and proven as such. Still democracy is worth it and I hold out hope for it to survive.
Beth, waiting for democracy is a wait I didn’t consider here, but certainly the LGBTQ community has had to wait a long time for its dignity to be recognized though not consistently and freely affirmed. You know what I’ve had to experience — and still do at times. Same with other minorities. As Dr. King says, the arc of the moral universe is long. Long, long, long, sometime just way too long.
Your work on behalf of Mothers Demand Action in a very, very conservative Wyoming legislature is hair-pulling, as you have described to me. And now with new efforts to suppress the LGBTQ community in Wyoming, you are understandably exasperated. Good Lord, do these lawmakers remember Matthew Shepherd? Thank you for continuing to fight for democracy that was created for all and meant to be applied to all. No one in this country should have to wait for it.