The sound of thunder claps. I jump. My little weather alert computer icon is flashing. We have a blizzard warning. The blizzard bunkering begins and we wait for the wind and snow to arrive. The blizzard hits with the expected force and drifts. We wait for the winds to subside and the plows to roll. The next morning the streets are passable and we all prepare to return to work. The wind and snow are gone leaving behind below zero temperatures as a “thinking of you” greeting card.
The next morning we run outside, crank the car and run back inside to wait for the car to warm. From eight in the morning until after one in the afternoon a parade of meetings march through my day like storm troopers. I sneak a look at my watch waiting for the first opportunity to let my blood sugar know I haven’t forgotten to eat. The car crunches the remaining frozen snow in the driveway as the week has ended and the snow blowing number crunching warrior has returned home. I pause and ponder the stops and starts of the day and how similar it was to the rush hour traffic when I lived in California.
I laughed to think of the “stoppage time” that would be added to a day for all the waiting and pauses. I think of Advent, the time of waiting and consider the paradox – one is seen as a disruption and one a celebrated sacred holiday. Why the difference? Perhaps the difference is the object of the waiting. One waiting period stops the flow promising a brief reprieve that you know will be followed by yet another compressed box of time with more demands. The other waiting period says I am Alpha and Omega the beginning and the end. I am the joy and belly laugh of a pot bellied Santa bringing gifts. I am an interjection into your Timex Rolex world and I come with singing, smiles and laughter because you are worth it, you’ve been good and you are loved. That’s not a message we easily accept or believe. Maybe that’s why we have to wait. We need to let it sink in and give us time to believe. What would my day be like if every wait, every disruption became a trigger to stop, pause, ponder and remind myself to believe?
About Me
- Beth Chapman
- Owatonna, Minnesota, United States
- I have begun a path, though I know not where, to a journey’s end that is calling. Along the way I pause to absorb the metaphors and images of this life, which are so precious. Here you shall find me brave, you shall find me pondering, you shall find me searching, and you shall find me collecting the images and metaphors like shells upon the beach. I am very much like the little monkey wearing a dapper hat, playing the cymbals and drum and dancing a jig. I do not have it all figured out, I may be learning to write, but one thing I do know and that is how to collect the shells on the beach of my beloved Gulf Shores. I offer these shells to you.
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