Stratford in August, taking in a play. This year is “Waiting for Godot” A cast of four men who appear to have fallen on difficult times. Their lives are in the mode of waiting; waiting for Godot. Everything is put on hold and due to not being able to go forward, they simple repeat. Conversations, day to day happenings repeat – the same execution, the same outcome.
No one going anywhere; no one doing anything.
Who has not known waiting? Waiting for something to happen, so you can move forward. You’re ready, you’re anxious. You believe when the thing you are waiting for happens, all will be well. Until then, without it, you wait and in the waiting, you do nothing. You can’t progress and no one can expect anything from you, because you are waiting.
Sometimes we are waiting for someone else. When they do what they say they will do, we can do something, until then; nothing.
Sometimes people wait for time to pass. When it passes, everything will be better. “Once this weekend is over, let’s just get through this month, in the spring – we’ll be able to …”
When the designated time passes – it so often turns into waiting for another weekend, another month, another season to pass before…
There are times waiting is good. It reminds us of patience, of timing. It asks us to realize that we may not be the only one in the equation. That what needs to come about is so much more than our mere selves.
While we wait, what do we do? Do we do nothing? After all, is that not what waiting is about? Does waiting equate to standing still?
My mother Nora Ann would say, “What are you waiting for – better days?” Which translated into – just get on with it.
I’ve learned from this that while I’m waiting and at sometimes feeling at the mercy of others, of finances, the weather, I begin to dabble with frustration. I then have a chat with myself, “Okay Sharon you have to wait. So while you’re waiting on this, what can you do?”
I make a list. There is always something you can do. Sometimes it’s another project, sometimes it’s getting together with a friend sometimes it’s the laundry.
While waiting for my Godot, I go do what I can. I accomplish what is ready to be done.
The boat sits on the muddy shoreline. It can take no one anywhere. The tide is out. The boatman is not sitting in his boat waiting; he’s off somewhere doing something else.
The tide comes in. I can hear him – he’s making his way to his vessel. He’s ready to go forward, to go out into the water. He never felt the waiting, because he was off somewhere doing.
Photo by; Sharon Cooke, Tidal Bore Truro Nova Scotia 2008
Waiting for Godot, Playwright Samuel Beckett, debut Paris 1953