How To Wait

At the grocery store, the cashier asks me how my Thanksgiving was.

“Lonely,” I say, remarking to myself that any other year, regardless if I thought it was fine or not, I’d have said, “Fine. Yours?”

“Yeah, same,” she replied and both of us laughed and then talked about the turkey and the fixins we made. We compared brining rituals and dry rubs, we discussed the merits of cranberry  relish vs. sauce, I told her about my “pat in the pan” crust for pumpkin pie.

“I’ve only been working here since March,” she tells me, and explains she had a job she didn’t like at all and that when the pandemic hit, that was her cue to jump ship and do something else.

“I love it here,” she tells me, wrapping the eucalyptus branches I bought in brown paper.

“I can relate,” I tell her, again in a bit of awe with myself for having this conversation – any conversation – with a stranger. But I tell her about leaving teaching and I tell her about writing, and the books, and the third book that isn’t going well but I tell her I work on it a little bit every day.

The groceries are almost bagged but she’s asking  me questions about writing. She says something about an idea for a novel, but then dismisses it.

“I had no plans to write a book, either,” I tell her. “Didn’t think I had the endurance for something like that.” She looks at me like many do when I say this. Maybe it’s that I’ve made room for surprise. Or hope.

“Next year, this will just be a memory,” I say, taking the milk from her and adding that I don’t need a bag for it.

I mean Covid, and lonely holidays, but maybe I also mean this conversation because we both shared an expectation we have for ourselves, and maybe it wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t made room for loneliness to pull up a chair and see what it had to offer – see what we could do with how we feel.

We are in the season of Advent*, and whether you observe it or not, my guess is many of us are experiencing the hefty anticipation of expectant waiting.

I put together a journal – something for your hands, your mind, and hopefully your heart – to help encourage the practice of waiting. It’s a 31-page instant download filled with journal prompts, a haiku calendar, and creative writing exercises. Find it here.

Think of it as a scrapbook – a place to explore and document your waiting, and to take note of the beauty found in the darkness.

*The journal does have a slight religious perspective to it.