December has waiting built into it.
Whether you are in the northern or southern hemisphere, you are waiting for a change in the light. Here in New England, we approach the “longest night” with an inward desire to gather what light we can find and hold it dear.
In some Christian traditions, we are in the season of Advent.
The word is latin, associated with an “approach” or “arrival”. We wait for the arrival. We wait for Christmas. We wait for the light.
Usually, this activity has some anticipation or even anxiety or excitement built into it. We feel a tension between where we are (in the dark) and where we want to be (opening presents and relaxing.) To wait is often considered an uncomfortable place because our attention is trained on the future—or something ahead of us. Not where we are.
There is nothing wrong about this experience of waiting. All the associations and discomforts make sense and are a valid way of inhabiting waiting. And, I have another option to offer.
What if waiting was a station?
What if you had arrived already and the name of the port is “waiting”? In other words, what is waiting when the ultimate destination is no longer relevant. That when we wait, we are fully present. We are here. Here where we wait. We have arrived.
How does that change waiting? Does it? We have arrived but we still wait, because that is what we do in the waiting station. But now waiting is its own thing. It is not about what is ahead, it is now about the act itself. The actual experience. Its like going to a pool. In a pool, you swim. In the waiting station, you wait. In the pool, its not about going anywhere. You aren’t swimming toward any particular place, you are just swimming.
So in the waiting station, we don’t wait for something. We just wait.
Then the question becomes … why? Why wait if there is no destination in the future? Why lift waits if it doesn’t mean my muscles will get stronger? Why take this medicine when the whole point is that it will help me get better? So then what is waiting independent of the reason you are waiting?
I think the answer is not to be understood, but to be experienced. Let’s try it.
Name something you are waiting for. Christmas, vacation, a party, a meal—whatever.
Imagine arriving there (Christmas morning or the dinner table or at the party) and notice the effect this imagination has on your body. Take an inventory of the sensations.
Now return to this moment where you haven’t arrived and recognize that it is not Christmas yet, not dinner time, not the day of the party, and realize you need to wait. How does your body feel now? What is the experience of waiting for the event?
Isolate the sensations. Interrogate them and describe them to yourself. Notice all the aspects of the sensations—where are they in your body? What emotions are you feeling? What is your energy like? What images are bubbling up in your mind?
Now make that an island unto itself. The sensations, the emotions, the images—they are all what you do on this island. This is the experience of this place. This is how you feel, how you behave and what you think about. This is the correct way of being here. You are doing great.
That’s it.
Does that change waiting for you? Maybe it doesn’t, but it definitely does for me. It takes a layer of suffering out of the mix and replaces it with a kind of culture. “I am in waiting” is now a place. A station where the urgent sensations, the tickle of delight and the forward leaning is simply what we do here. Its how things go. And what’s fun is that we can do it together.
I love this so much! I often think of childhood car rides "Are we there yet?" HOw much better if our parents just said "Yes! we are"
Agh, this was so powerful and it felt sooo good! Was that some kind of visualisation?