Waiting

I found this image a few days ago, and had such a visceral reaction...  I've held on to it, while my mind teased out what it was that was stirred up in me by this picture.

Look at her.  She is waiting.  Every fiber of her being is yearning toward the object of her desire.  The wind, the water, the sand...  all of it is flowing along, and she, clearly, expects what she is waiting for to come into view at any moment.

I think that the submission that I have lived and practiced looks like this.  If there were a single word to characterize what I have done, what I do, most of the time, that word might well be "waiting."  Waiting to know what was.  Waiting to find and be found.  Waiting to be here.  Waiting for Him to come home.  Waiting for Him to wake up.  Waiting for bedtime.  Waiting to see what He might want.  Waiting for illnesses to end.  Waiting for surgical procedures to happen.  Waiting for the healing that has to happen after surgeries.  Waiting for the weekend.  Waiting for the next paddle stroke.  Waiting to hear that He is pleased... or not.  In fact, as I think of it, much of my "vanilla" life is taken up in waiting, too -- on a whole variety of fronts.

Entering, as we are, into the holiday season of gift giving, I am reminded of those long-past childhood years when I waited, impatiently, for Christmas morning, and the time when I might see what treasures had been delivered by Santa Claus.  That childhood waiting would begin, each year, with the arrival of the Sears and Roebuck's catalog.  My brothers and I would pore over the pages, filled with every imaginable toy, and compile long, detailed lists of all the things we wanted.  We'd write out our lists; we'd whisper our longings into the ear of the local department store Santa; we'd silently amend that list to our prayers each night... and then we would wait.  Long, winter days spent waiting for the fulfillment of all that childlike waiting...

As I read around the blogging circle here, I can find others who are engaged in various kinds of waiting.  Over at Swan's Myst, there is the frustration that derives from waiting for a demanding do-me sub to figure out what his role is and ought to be.  Morningstar eagerly awaits the day when retirement finally arrives and allows her to finally embark on her new life with W.  Oatmeal Girl's Master is dealing with health issues, and so she waits.   Kaya, too, healing from her own surgery, and awash in all the complications that life brings, waits...  Different stories, but in every case, there is that common sense of waiting for some expected outcome.

And that sense of expectation is precisely what has me thinking.  Waiting seems to me to be about expecting something.  Wishing for something...  It might not go all the way to the level of a "demand," but then again, it might.  When I wait, there is something for which I am waiting, and I expect it to come to pass.  Without the expectation of wish fulfillment, the waiting evaporates.  By definition, waiting is about remaining inactive in one place while expecting something.

So, I wonder, if waiting, in itself, is a matter of seeking to control; trying to shape and define the future to match up to our wants and our desires.  I think it very well might be, and that begs the question:  If I have sought to relinquish control, to enter into a relationship within which the control does not rest with me, does waiting (for whatever) remain a consistent choice for me?  Is there anyway to wait and not create some sort of expectation or demand in the process?  And, if the answer to those questions, is (as I suspect), "No," then what?  Can a person just stop waiting?  Can I?  What would that mean?

If I weren't waiting all the time, would I stop projecting forward?  Not waiting might mean just being.  Now.  Right here.  Without any sort of expectation or demand.  I'm not sure if that is even possible.  I'd have to pay close attention to be able to catch myself leaning forward into that expectant, yearning posture.  Could I?  Would I?  What if I did?

swan