There is a poem from Shel Silverstein’s book “Where the Sidewalk Ends” it went like this…
Lazy Jane
Lazy lazy lazy lazy lazy lazy Jane.
She wants a drink of water so she waits and waits and waits and waits and waits for it to rain.
As I recall there was a humble drawing of the girl, said “Jane” waiting at the bottom of the stanza with her mouth ajar, kind of waiting, in fact for the rain.
Sometimes life is an actual waiting game. And while we may have very well asked for water or gone on walkabout trying to find some and or moved on when none presented itself, we wait. Humanity waits. The world waits for the next prompt. When will something else take the place of waiting?
When I was in my 20’s I almost couldn’t wait for the life that was ahead of me. I wanted to finish my degree, I wanted to travel, I needed to accomplish things, like run a marathon or travel abroad, and live on my own for a while. Eventually, I wanted to get married if the opportunity came along. I was never one of those girls that planned her wedding from an early age. No Monica Geller binder on my wedding over here! Somewhere along the way I realized that the John Lennon lyric is pretty close to the truth, ‘life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.’ This is what happens, like it or not, time will pass, and circumstances will change. New laws will go into effect and then you move onward. This much I know is true. We wait. Sometimes it’s in the waiting that we realize things are pretty good, life hasn’t been unbearable and truly this whole time we’ve been thinking that we needed to advance to some next level we are already there. This is where the breathing, the living, the do-ing of life remains, in the waiting. So while you are waiting, or working, or planning something for your life in between, don’t forget that there is honor in the waiting. There is patience and virtue, together holding space for you to catch your breath and breathe deep. Fill your mind and your heart with good thoughts and things like tolerance, patience and honor will come, it just takes time. So when you’re thirsty, remember the Jane quoted before; she wants, but in the end she waits.
Be. Well.
~T0V@H