Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2004-10-30 - 1:20 p.m.

Thoughts After A Conversation With a Friend

"Just don't do the behavior that leads to despair."

And just what is the behavior that leads to despair?

I think it's waiting.

Waiting.

Each minute waiting is invested, even if it looks like it's wasted. Invested. Saving up for an outcome, and event, a hoped-for thing.

When the hoped-for thing doesn't come, the waiting becomes a cheat. A betrayal. And a stupidity.

I keep a book in the car, and often a practice recorder as well. When I have to wait, I read. Or I play. Sometimes I jot notes for poems. I try to see those islands of inevitable waiting as small gifts. Respite. Mini-vacations. Mostly, I do.

But this is another kind of waiting.

Sometimes I don't eat, because maybe I'll eat later, with him. But then I usually don't get to.

Sometimes I don't make plans. "I don't know yet, he hasn't said."

Later, the waiting looks like the wrong choice. For a smart woman. If I am a smart woman.

Later, the waiting looks like waste, like pennies thrown in a bucket that had no bottom.

What would you think of me if I told you the bucket has never had any bottom, and that I knew that, and that I threw the pennies anyway?

What would I think of me?

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