The wait.
It is an art that we learn to first reject, and then cherish.
For someone, an idea, or the sharing of a thought. There has to be a reward in
waiting, but maybe not for waiting.
As a writer, the empty page or a blank electronic screen
have promised me the visit of my muse. And I have waited. I have looked at empty pages on long plane
flights, in lonesome hotel rooms, on crowded trains, or in shelters during war
times. These pages are all the same – empty spaces full of promises. What will it
be this time? A poem about brown eyes? A Scandinavian city full of sun at
midnight? The story of a genocide I was told as a kid? The page remains empty,
flat, and I wait.
Amazingly, as I have looked at empty pages in every corner
of the world, somehow my muse has found my hiding place. A space where I did
cache myself from the moment I had promised to others. Sometimes students,
sometimes government representatives. I was there to be a healthcare
professional, and yet, always found the space to be just myself. Facing a blank
page.
And when my muse arrived, wearing dream and shiny tear
drops, I saw the page eager to surrender. My words would now break the silence
of the emptiness; my fears would make the page tremble. My muse, wearing shadow
and without make up, was near me now to give permission. Not a story, not hope.
Just the permission to write. What I wrote was always my choice.
… Waiting is an art, which becomes a craft in daily life.
This time, we wait for cycles to complete themselves. It is not about writing
anymore but the readiness for what is to happen. One cannot be impatient or
forceful, time is an unforgiving lover.
Like empty pages, the wait is faced with empty moments when
we hear the seconds tick at the pace of our inner resonance. The artfulness of
being patient becomes the resilience of surviving these empty moments. Because
their bare timescape is also filled with promises. Because we believe it is.
An artist becomes a craftsman by sharing his art. A writer
becomes at peace by waiting for his muse. And an empty page just learns to wait.
November 7, 2013
© Vahé Kazandjian, 2013
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