Waiting
There are about 10 unfinished blog posts that I try to avoid seeing every time I open my laptop.
Every time I sit down to write, I end up with half-finished paragraphs. There is always another bit of research, or a new tantalising insight that seems important enough to delay pressing “publish”.
I am caught in the frustrating tension between an urge to create and express myself, and never feeling quite ready. The insight seems to be “on the tip of my pen” … never fully coalescing into something coherent.
In recent times I have been drawn less to theory, and more to poetry — so it seems fitting that a poem would provide perspective.
The Clearing by Martha Postlewaite
Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself to this world
so worthy of rescue.
Thank you to my friend Dina Oelofsen for sharing this at just the right time.
I am reframing my frustration and procrastination as waiting … an active waiting, with cupped hands, for the words that needs to be spoken into the world now.
