Waiting ...

I’ve spent a great deal of time waiting the last two months.  Waiting can be exhilarating, tedious, a practice in patience, tiring, full of anticipation, frustrating.  It all depends upon the circumstances surrounding the waiting and whether or not the person waiting has any control over why they are waiting or what they are waiting for.

Waiting to recover from an illness is frustrating.  Your mind is ready to go full-tilt, but your body must have time to recover before it can run smoothly again.  Much of my waiting during the winter has been this.  It’s like taking the car in for service to have one thing fixed and being told there are three other repairs that have to be done now.

Waiting for a Gathering or Meeting (as in meeting another person) that is anticipated to bring great joy and delight is a practice in patience.  We can put our time to good use in preparing for the arrival of Joy.  We can be mindful of how we are proceeding with our wait.

Julie and Cathryn

Jessica Baris and me

Daoist Temple in Chinatown

Waiting for an Event that is sure to offer more than advertised is exhilarating.  Everyone loves getting a good deal, don’t they?  I waited all of January and a bit of February for such an Event.  It proved to be well-worth the wait.  Thanks to Storyteller, Cathryn Fairlee, for her invitation to spend Chinese New Year with her and my cousin, Peggy, for a great time in San Francisco!  Also while in San Francisco, I was pleased to meet in person Wakeful Storyteller, Jessica Baris, whom I had just met a few days earlier via Skype thanks to Buck Creacy and his World of Storytelling Radio.


Waiting for a well-deserved Reward that is having difficulties putting in an appearance is frustrating.  Most of us desire our promised rewards on time.  Come on, we deserve it, don’t we?



Waiting for a Gift is full of anticipation.  Anticipation is titillating, exciting and makes the waiting all seem worthwhile.  





Denver International Airport

Waiting in an airport as I was doing when I wrote this because flight connections did not work (the wind gods plotted on high resulting in a five hour wait) is tedious and tiring. But at least I had something to occupy my mind (my book to read was with me instead of in my suitcase and the internet is free!) and could take a walk to exercise my body. I could have been bored or surreptitiously eaves dropped on others' conversations and watched people scurrying about. Which is, of course, way more fun than being bored!  I wish I had known about the quotation from Diane Wolkstein which is on the window in the B Concourse (thanks to Regina Ress for letting us know about this wonderful tribute) because I would have gone to see it.  Now I must wait until I fly again!

So there are all kinds of waiting.  What do you like or dislike waiting for?

© Julie Moss Herrera, 2013