Wait, For Now
About this episode
This episode explores the concept of waiting and the significance of the 'almost' in life through the lens of poetry.
There’s the feeling of standing on the edge of everything and nothing at once. So much that might happen. So much that could happen. And nothing has happened yet. You can feel your whole life leaning forward, and you can also feel that today, right now, for all your efforts, nothing’s changed. Sometimes joy and sadness in the same hour. The almost. We’ve been taught to treat the almost like a waiting room. A dull hallway before the real thing starts. This week’s episode makes the opposite case: the almost is not the hallway. It’s the room. The waiting is not the thing before your life. It is your life, and there’s a way to be in it that isn’t agony. I let three poets say it better than I can. Galway Kinnell , in “Wait,” a poem he reportedly wrote for a student close to giving up: “Wait, for now. / Distrust everything if you have to. / But trust the hours. Haven’t they / carried you everywhere, up to now?” Not the highs. Not the crash the morning after the highs. The hours. They didn’t fail you before. They’re just not done. Wendell Berry , six lines called “The Real Work,” for when it isn’t just waiting but stuck: “The mind that is not baffled is not employed. / The impeded…
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