waiting

There are rare days in life when time seems different, almost heavy and slow like on a hot humid summer's day when the moisture in the air sticks to your skin. Some outside force causes you to stop and wait.  You don't want to move. You wait for time to pass. You wait and wait and you wait.

I have felt this on a few occasions: when my body has birthed my babies, sitting with my dying mother, waiting for news about my father while he endures long risky brain surgery, and sometimes I feel this slow out-of-time but strangely more in-time feeling when I travel far distances and I find myself waiting for hours in foreign airports. I am waiting for something to happen, some change to occur.  I am waiting for some movement.

All these moments/movements are transitional.  My body, my mind, my spirit moves from one place of being to the next. I am aware of the invisible shift within me while the very visible me experiences the extraordinary moments. Are these moments really that extraordinary?

The more aware I become of  the slowness of time, and the more I allow myself to give in to its waiting,  the more I notice how much I have yet to learn about the art of paying attention.