roam and rove

What are you waiting for?

I've been asking myself this question over the last week or so. I think of it during the most obvious of times: the grocery store, the traffic light, the restaurant. Then, there are other times, like when I'm barely asleep that it comes to me, that question, just like the dream you seem to fall back into, the one that waited for you to place your head back on the pillow. Hello, again. I missed you.

Still, I don't have an answer. Right now, right this very second, I'm waiting for the minutes to slip by so I can call and interview a woman for a story I'm writing. At first she wanted me to wait until her child was away for a visit. Then she wanted me to wait until he got to sleep. "Twenty, thirty more minutes?" More waiting. He answered the phone. "There's a lady who wants to talk to you," he told her. That made me smile.

Now, I don't mind it, the slippage of time. It's when I wake up, anxious, that I mind. What am I waiting for? I know I'm being obtuse here... trying to maintain some sort of public privacy. Ridiculous, I know. But I'm tired of waiting, is what I'm trying to say. I used to say, "I'm practicing patience." That was when I felt achy for something different, like if I just let go and just let things happen, it would. But it hasn't. And patience is over rated. And I do mind it. I do.