Wednesday 15 February 2012

Waiting...


Don't you hate waiting? It's taxing. Wasteful. Mostly it's irritating. It stretches your nerves...well, till you're fidgeting like you'd like to go to the loo. Uh, that's my son's teacher's expression when his friend was waiting to get his work checked. :)
Waiting for a bus at the stop or your kid to finish home work so you can stop the vigilance and go attend the pile of chores waiting to be done.
Or waiting to hear the result for a writing contest. Can you hear the heart pounding?
Waiting is having time thrust on you when you don't want it. 
One thing about it. While waiting you can experience certain things. When the anxiety of waiting simmers down and you're reconciled to the inevitable. I usually do this while waiting for the bus on the highway. Like notice a woman straggling along with a load of dry wood on her head and wonder about other peoples' lifestyles and realise just how different they are from yours. Or see that woman hitch a ride on a trailer and wonder where she'd be going?  
Recently I was waiting for my son to do dictation for his weak spellings in Hindi. As I sat simmering with impatience, he showed me a diary he has with quotes in it. Reluctantly I began to listen as he read them to me, then I started being impressed. They were really wonderful quotes. I felt proud that he'd actually read them and understood many of them. He asked me to explain those he didn't quite get and we had a cosy time discussing them.
So waiting may not be bad all the time. This inaction in the midst of action.
Of course it has to be got through. Like waiting for the results. As I'm doing atm. It involves daily rise and fall of hope levels till you feel like yelling arrrgh or climbing the walls.
I decided to tackle it by working on the ms I had shelved.
How would you tackle waiting? Do you try to distract yourself like I'm doing or search for meaning during the wait? Or something else entirely

Hmm... opinions?