Redtree Times

Imitatio– At the West End Gallery

We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.

― Voltaire

After you find out all the things that can go wrong, your life becomes less about living and more about waiting.

― Chuck Palahniuk, Choke

I am using two quotes to kick off today’s post. They are from two very different sources, one the intellectual leading light of the Enlightenment of the 17th century and the other the hard-edged contemporary author of Fight Club.

But both say pretty much the same thing, albeit in different terms: Life is often mainly a matter of waiting.

Waiting for things to begin. Or end.

Waiting for signs or a proper time. Or conditions to change.

Waiting for the Muse to visit.

Waiting for the sun to shine or the dark clouds to recede.

Waiting for justice.

Or the next shoe to drop.

Waiting for things to get better. Or worse.

Waiting for hopes or horrors.

That’s certainly how the last couple of years have felt, like I have been treading water in a deep pool. Not going forward in any way but paddling like hell to just stay afloat, waiting for something to which I can’t even name.

Not even sure I will recognize whatever it is if when and if it appears.

The scary thing about this time is that feels like the normal state of being now even though deep down, something tells me this should not be so.

So, I wait in my corner trying to appear as patient as possible to see if this will soon change. All the while, my brain is furiously treading water, nervous and impatient.

To accompany this little foray, I am going way back with the Rolling Stones. Here’s one of my favorite Stones songs, I Am Waiting, from 1966.

Now, time for me to get back to my chair in the corner. Gonna get some good waitin’ in today. Close the door on your way out, okay?

This post ran about a year ago at this same time of the year. I feel this same sense of waiting every year around now, like I am waiting to get past the requirements and anxieties of the holidays, get past the marker in time that is the new year, get past the creative blocks that seems to build around this time every year. Waiting for the Muse to either inspire or belittle my efforts. Who knows when she will show up? I sometimes feel like the refugees described by the narrator at the beginning of Casablanca:

Here, the fortunate ones through money, or influence, or luck, might obtain exit visas and scurry to Lisbon; and from Lisbon, to the New World. But the others wait in Casablanca… and wait… and wait… and wait.

So, I wait. And wait. And…