'I sing to use the waiting'

Life has a habit of putting us on hold, whether we like it or not

Suspended animation or life, pending? Image: Alex Tutty

What are you waiting for? That’s not meant to be a rhetorical question. Perhaps, even as you're reading this, you’re in line for coffee, scrolling mindlessly at the 432 bus stop, or sitting in for a delivery. You paid extra for a two-hour slot, but your new trainers are still seven stops away? Make it make sense.

Maybe the wait is more existential than that: it’s the wolf at your door, not the DPD guy. Maybe you’re waiting for a break, a sign, the all clear. Some good news for a change. Believe me, I get it. When people ask me how I am right now, I say: pending. I’m living in a state of pending. 

I won’t go into all the details straight away (some of you know them and those who don’t will hear them soon enough). It's enough to say that life is missing some markers and for all my incredible luck – good health, supportive partner, family and friends close by, a roof over all our heads – it can be lonely-making. That said, the more I share this feeling with other people, the more I realise how many of us are caught in The Waiting, which no amount of mindfulness, distraction, or Andy from Headspace will diffuse. 

In reality, perhaps the most helpful thing we can do is admit and submit to the longing. This isn't the suspended animation of lockdown. We will always want (and find our lives wanting). And that’s okay. There’s comfort in how banal, how communal this truth is.

Certainly, for a few friends, the wait/want is the same: as women in our late thirties and early forties, questions of fertility loom large. We support each other as best we can (this recent post from The Single Supplement is good on the complexities), while each hoping for our own happy resolution. And for those who are choicefully childfree at this age or life stage, the hope is for the questions (from other people, and rarely invited) to cease. 

For many, many more, those who are already parents, the wait is for a decent night’s sleep, affordable childcare, and for a government who doesn’t seem intent on robbing them of both. Most of the parents I know are waiting to claim back at least a portion of time as their own, whether for work, relationships, or to remind themselves of who they once were and will be again.

Work is often a case of waiting, too: to get your dream job or escape a nightmare one; to secure a promotion, pay rise, or greater flexibility; to change department, company, career; for your four-yearly sabbatical to roll round or for that aforementioned break, any fucking break will do, literal or otherwise.

Because for all too many people in society and the world right now, the wait is critical. For housing, asylum, justice, climate action. For diagnosis, treatment, surgery, recovery. For a cure. 

We wait for birth, we wait for death, and sometimes – as for a colleague of mine – both at the same time, not knowing which cataclysmic event is going to hit our family unit first. We wait for love, and if we are lucky enough to find it, only to lose it again, we have to wait for the grief to release us. 

We wait to be free.

Gosh, but waiting can be painful. Like the rising breathlessness of a panic attack or the belly ache of hunger. Like a dead weight, or (in the eyes of others) weakness. "Why wait?" comes the challenge of the motivational speaker or the email in your inbox from a brand you don't remember signing up to. But maybe why wait? is another rhetorical question with a genuine answer.

Often we wait because we must. And if some degree of waiting is unavoidable, inevitable even, the question becomes: what do we do while we wait? What could the good wait look like? Talk to a surfer or gardener and you’ll likely get some pointers (I've a few of those in my life, so you might just hear from them in future newsletters).

No toxic positivity ahead, I promise. But one thing I like about the word pending is the hope that it allows. That thing I’m waiting for? It's coming. Maybe not when or how or where I expected, but something is coming, that's for sure. And if waiting is not just part of the process, but the only viable path ahead, how do we walk it better?

The poet Emily Dickinson, who thought a LOT about this stuff, wrote: “I sing to use the waiting.” And while I can’t hold a tune (or tie a bonnet, as Emily could), her words are the foundation of this newsletter. On one level, I’m simply using up time. But by exploring the art (and maybe even science) of waiting, week by week, and by hearing from other people about their own states of pending, I hope to make the wait more bearable, for me and maybe for you. 

So, I’ll ask again: what are you waiting for? Message or share in the comments, please do subscribe if you’re happy to wait alongside me, and we’ll go from there. Thanks so much for reading this today.

While I wait this week

I’m watching: Wellmania on Netflix, for a dose of Sydney. It's based on a book by my former Guardian Australia colleague, Brigid Delaney, one of journalism and life’s true originals (and a big inspo in getting back to writing). We’ll always have Ubud, Brig!

I’m reading: Enchantment by Katherine May, which I picked up in Ely’s gorgeous Toppings bookshop while staying with a school friend. May’s previous book Wintering consoled a lot of women I know through lockdown. I started this new one on the train back to London, so thoughts to follow, but do check out the author’s substack, Katherine May’s Stray Attention. It’s full of delights.

I’m doing: Couch to 5K. I’m on run three of week three of my third attempt today, so hoping some De La Soul magic kicks in soon. If you have any tips or good running playlists, please send them my way.

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