Wait....

Today is sunday. I am about to begin my final full week in this one room suite. Many of my belongings are packed away. My mother brings me boxes from the second hand store where she works as a volunteer, I fill them, and wait for more boxes. I've lost the desire to do much of anything. I scan the paper each day for jobs, and if there are any, I dress and go out to offer my resume. Occasionally I spend a few hours out with my sisters or mother. Other than that I remain here in this room, waiting. I'm in a state of waiting. With all this time on my hands I could be creating more art. I could be working on photographs, or writing, or making things with papier mache. Instead, during the long periods that I'm in this room, I read, sleep, and write entries in this blog. And when I come into the possession of another empty box, I fill it with my things, and stack it with the other packed boxes.

I'm waiting for my existence here to be over. I'm waiting to be warm. I'm waiting to make a better home for myself away from this cell. I'm waiting for a call about a job. More important than all these things, I'm waiting for someone to come back to me, or not. I'm waiting to see how I will handle the loss if this person doesn't return. I've done what I can to force fate in this chapter of my life, now I understand that it's out of my hands. If I resist the temptation to wrench this experience onto the path I demand ... if I sit still, and with patience, allow things to take their course, I will have learned something. I don't know if I have it in me, but I intend to try.

A year ago I was introduced to the beauty of foreign films. There is something soothing about having to read subtitles, and I find it isn't difficult for me to relate to cultures that are entirely different from my own. When I watch a foreign film that speaks to me, it's like discovering a kindred spirit. As though the story has been woven from the fabric that is Me. I often feel as though I'm watching my own imagination - the actors are reenacting stories that were spun within my head. Not because I created the stories, but because they are made from the ingredients that go into my own imaginings.

I find the same when reading books written by foreign authors. There is something dream-like about the foreign books I love to read. The stories seem ever so slightly to be born in a different dimension than that modern place where most American and Canadian books are crafted. Foreign books bring me to a state of waiting. They settle me and allow me to be patient. Today I'm reading 'The Wind-up Bird Chronicle" by Haruki Murakami. In this story, a man is waiting. He is hoping and searching and groping for understanding. At the moment, in the place where I am in the book, he has climbed down into a dry well and is sitting there, learning himself.

When I came to this scene, I felt the urge to go out in search of my own dry well and climb down into it. But I understand this would be foolish. Besides, I don't know of any in my area. And so I must be content to wait here in this cement room. It is, in its way, a kind of dry well.