Waiting...

Don't you hate waiting? It's taxing. Wasteful. Mostly it's irritating. It stretches your nerves...well, till you're fidgeting like you'd like to go to the loo. Uh, that's my son's teacher's expression when his friend was waiting to get his work checked. :)

Waiting for a bus at the stop or your kid to finish home work so you can stop the vigilance and go attend the pile of chores waiting to be done.

Or waiting to hear the result for a writing contest. Can you hear the heart pounding?

Waiting is having time thrust on you when you don't want it. 

One thing about it. While waiting you can experience certain things. When the anxiety of waiting simmers down and you're reconciled to the inevitable. I usually do this while waiting for the bus on the highway. Like notice a woman straggling along with a load of dry wood on her head and wonder about other peoples' lifestyles and realise just how different they are from yours. Or see that woman hitch a ride on a trailer and wonder where she'd be going?  

Recently I was waiting for my son to do dictation for his weak spellings in Hindi. As I sat simmering with impatience, he showed me a diary he has with quotes in it. Reluctantly I began to listen as he read them to me, then I started being impressed. They were really wonderful quotes. I felt proud that he'd actually read them and understood many of them. He asked me to explain those he didn't quite get and we had a cosy time discussing them.

So waiting may not be bad all the time. This inaction in the midst of action.

Of course it has to be got through. Like waiting for the results. As I'm doing atm. It involves daily rise and fall of hope levels till you feel like yelling arrrgh or climbing the walls.

I decided to tackle it by working on the ms I had shelved.

How would you tackle waiting? Do you try to distract yourself like I'm doing or search for meaning during the wait? Or something else entirely

Hmm... opinions? 

SHOW NOT TELL

How many times we have heard of this red flag warning in writing? To tell you the truth, I'm still struggling to grasp it. When I do try to scan my writing through this mirror, it fairly drives me up the wall to try to fit my words to suit it.
 Recently something happened to make me see this in a totally different light that had nothing to do with writing at all.
I had been writing furiously and had to leave it to make dinner. So in the eager rush to get back to my ms, I decided to make an ordinary and quickly procured meal of chapatis and lentils for dinner. It would be good for digestion for my in-laws, I told myself and of course lentils are full of proteins so that's great for kids. My son didn't agree with my time-saving but not so savoury efforts. I told him, Mom's busy, so if you're a good boy, make do with this. He answered with something to the effect of 'do you even care what I like?'
This really struck me. It wasn't the first time I'd opted to 'make-do' instead of lavishing my energy on preferences. In my effort to keep the ball rolling and get things done while making extra time for writing, I'd begun to focus more on needs and less on choices. I was expecting everyone to adjust to my lack of time, but what my son said made me wonder if they were interpreting it as lack of love. Show not tell. That's as important in everyday life as in writing. Love has to be shown in caring, in taking into account our loved ones likes and dislikes, otherwise it's no use telling another person how much we love. Love means extending our time and patience to them.
That incident was something of an eye-opener. So I made my son his favourite stuffed parantha and had my smiling boy back.
Now I've made myself a promise to always show, not just tell!
What about you? Have you had a rush hour moment when you ignored someone? Did you get a chance to put it to rights? I'd love to hear your take on this.