Waiting

 

During Covid, it used to feel like you spent all your time waiting. Waiting at the public health centre, at the village office, at hospitals, in the car. Even being at home often felt like waiting.

There is always some waiting going on. A permanent impatience to already be done with whatever it is that has you engaged. Not unlike moving the cursor to check how long is left on the video, no matter how interesting it is. As if the knowledge that things must end prevents complete engagement with them. An easy avenue is the mobile phone. But disengagement does not always require external stimuli. You could just as well be staring into space, willing time to skip ahead to the next plot point. Everything that happens happens while waiting for something else.

Today I was at a conference where most of the attendees knew each other. Every lecture had you waiting for the break, naturally. Every break had you waiting for the next lecture, perhaps less naturally. Ramadan had me waiting for Eid. You could extricate this sentiment from 94:7 as Pickthall read it: “So when thou art relieved, still toil.” The exhortation never to be ‘done,’ so to speak, does resonate. Something Jeff says while shooting the alien movie in the last season of Community.