We’ve all felt the labour of waiting. For someone, for something to happen. In waiting, comes an impatience that drags within one’s soul.
Waiting for the result of your examinations, an answer from your doctor, an affirmation from your lover. Waiting for those who left to come back in some form, waiting for apologies, waiting for forgivenesses. Waiting for the time to change, waiting for something divine to bring peace. Waiting for the wars to get over, waiting for the days to pass. Waiting for today to end, waiting for tomorrow to happen, waiting for yesterday to come again.
In An Iceland Fisherman, Pierre Loti wrote:
Waiting, always waiting, and knowing nothing! When would the time come when she need wait no longer? She did not even know that; and, now, she almost wished that it might be soon.
Thinking about waiting, I also remember a famous play.
Samuel Beckett, an Irish playwright and writer, wrote a tragicomedy play called Waiting for Godot.
The play is about conversations between two men, Vladimir and Estragon, who are waiting for the arrival of the mysterious Godot, who continually sends word that he will appear but who never does. They discuss their miseries in life, they consider many different actions to take, and yet they wait.
These two human beings do not know why they were put on earth. They make the tenuous assumption that there must be some point to their existence, and they look to Godot for enlightenment. Because they hold out hope for meaning and direction, they acquire a kind of nobility that enables them to rise above their futile existence.
In Beckett’s story, waiting is a kind of non-activity, a self-erasing. The main point is what happens in the process of waiting. Maybe it is life itself.1 So he writes,
“We are waiting for nothing. Yet, since we are unable to leave, and since we are waiting, there must be someone or something, that makes us wait.”
So we wait.
We wait for something — and maybe it never comes. But do we still wait?
Would you wait for someone or something forever, even if nothing might ever come of it?
I think I would have waited forever for you
I think I would’ve waited forever for you
And by that I mean,
As friends, if that means I would get a sliver of your life.
Turn me into moss if that means I get to lay on your ground longer.
Let me remain light of the Sun on the skin of the Moon, so I can brighten the remaining path between us.
Come to the museum, I am waiting in a glass cage for you to finally see me.
Rechristened to the God you worship, so I can hear your voice call me back.
Because you mentioned your love for gardening, I signed up for terramation.
And I will wait.
If it means a thousand lives surpass my being,
A lightning strikes me and I am forever standing still, orbiting the ecliptic plane until gravity ceases to exist.
In waiting, there is a fishhook of hope,
stinging my teeth as my eyes face the sky.
The movement is odd,
but I think I am finally getting somewhere.
Waiting is an illusion of change,
Change away from the stagnation of nothingness,
of somethingness,
A rustle in the trees that says maybe spirits exist,
A cold handcloth that says maybe it is still damp,
A grey cloud that questions if there will be rain someday.
And till then,
I think it’s better that I wait.
Just a little longer,
Maybe this time, something will change.
Thank you, I truly appreciate the time you have taken out of your day to read this!
If you enjoy my work, don’t forget to share it forward. And until next time, listen to a song from my playlist:
https://philosophia-bg.com/archive/philosophia-9-2015/waiting-samuel-becketts-enigmatic-sign-of-life/
Waiting to see and hug you soon 😘🤗🤗👌
Wonderful work Isha👏👏
This shouldn't be free!