The Waiting Place

I firmly believe that sharing stories about our lives is how we make sense of ourselves. Each day brings new and familiar experiences that shape our outlook and beliefs. Sharing, either out loud with a friend, or on the pages of a journal, can help us see what’s really going on. Photography is a tool to help me process my thoughts and feelings. Photographs are so powerful. They evoke emotions and beg questions. Every now and then I like to take a break from sharing the portraits I take of other people and share photographs I make that express a thought or a feeling that is meaningful to me.

Oh the Places You’ll Go! That’s one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books. The part that stood out the most for me was The Waiting Place. Do you remember it?

For people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go.

Or a bus to come, or plane to go.

Or the mail to come, or the rain to go.

Or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow.

Or waiting around for a Yes or No.

Or waiting for their hair to grow.

Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting is so hard! And the more our modern culture evolves, I think the harder it gets. Technology has trained us to expect everything at lightning speed. Waiting for a video to download online drives us crazy. Or picture that spinning wheel when your Netflix buffers, it makes you nuts right? These little things we wait on everyday seem to amp up our stress level, but it’s the big things we wait for in life that leave us the most uncomfortable.

Quitting or losing a job and waiting for the new one to show up.

Starting a business and waiting for customers.

Waiting on the heartbreak from a broken relationship to go away.

Or the very worst, waiting for time to suture the deep wounds of lost loved ones.

That’s the kind of waiting place that we never seem to leave. But what if the waiting place is really a place called The Trusting Place?

Trusting yourself that you really do have the answer way deep down inside.

Trusting that taking one step will likely reveal the next stepping stone.

Trusting that the majority of people really are doing their best.

Or trusting that pain in life is inevitable but so is joy and laughter.

No matter how you slice it, the act of trusting is hard. But for me, it lands a little softer than just being told to “be patient.” We’ll all end up in the waiting place again and again but next time I’m going to try to swap the word wait with the word trust. Now back to waiting on my kids to get their shoes on!