Waiting

I used to drive to Vancouver Airport and stand on a grassy field just outside the perimeters of the runway and watch the jets take off and land. The rush of metal and jet fuel would max out my senses, driving out any unwanted feelings that might have been trying to take over. Just when I would feel wild and uncontrollable, I would stand there, face up, chest open and arms wide, and let the forces of the plane dominate my body and press me to the ground in one giant roar of authority.

There have been times in my life where I’d stand there and wait, feeling wild and uncontrollable, and no plane would fly overhead. I’d scour the sky, desperate for a higher power and yet there was none. Sometimes it seemed like I stood alone in that one spot for an eternity, watching the seasons change, hoping for a sign of Life for when I stood alone in that anxious state, I was never really living.

Sometimes the isolation and hopelessness would be too much to bear and I’d take matters into my own hands, exchanging anything I could offer for some sort of salve to stop the bleeding. Whether we like to admit it or not, we all find our own escapes from pain. Some of us drink or eat or run. Or maybe we have children to fill the void. Or we treat sex one-dimensionally and spread it on the surface of our skin like the desert sun hits the outermost layer of sand; we feel its burning presence but it leaves our deepest layers untouched and cold.

I know that the healing happens in the waiting. That we have two choices: to exchange our souls for the first thing that crosses our path, risking contamination, or, we can wait for the fuel that will ultimately satisfy our longing and satiate our bellies.

It’s part of our growing process. It’s cocooning. It’s the pregnant silence carrying the whisper of what’s to come. And when our promise flies overhead, we will know the roar of its omnipotence so intimately that we will tremble with relief.