The Waiting Room.
Photo by Andreea Popa on Unsplash
May is my birthday month—the return of my natal sun and the start of my personal year. It is also the end of my academic year and the start of a teacher’s most sacred time: summer.
So May is a huge space of transition for me. Early in this blog’s life, I posted almost daily in May because I felt a need to document the slow shift from one year to the next, reflect on the year’s learning, and anticipate the lessons of the coming one.
But that vision was 2017’s. In 2017 I had just been laid off from a job I’d hated for 18 years and was looking for new meaning and pattern and change. It was time to figure out who I was outside of a context that made me into someone I did not enjoy being. So I wrote about things that I remembered that I liked about myself: poetry, yoga, astrology, grief, celebration, ritual, art, and love.
I wrote about Covid and Advent and children and teaching. But it all stopped in May of 2024. Because that was the moment when I found the meaning and pattern and change that I had been looking for in 2017, the moment when all of the seeking found what it sought: the person I remembered liking. Even if other people didn’t.
A few weeks ago, I started to feel the vibe of my coming year—not patterns and change but a quiet container filled with everything I need and already have. I am a passenger on a summer road trip. I have magazines and snacks. A pen and notebook. The AC works. Outside, the trees and cows and tractor-trailers roll past. The landscape blurs and billows around me like curtains.
And I am here. Waiting. In a container that will take me to a new year. The road leads on. Let me tell you about it; I hope you are in no hurry.
Blue moon on Sunday
On the last day of May, under a blue moon, I get another chance to plant the seed or take the step or say the words that move me to where I am supposed to be. And this chance is not going to come around again for a while.
An artist date
I had already told myself I was going to the Art Institute, and I didn’t want to let myself down about that. So I could check off #2—no wriggling out. And while I have been an Art Institute member for years and have seen many exhibits many times, I was sure I could find two hours worth of art to admire, so I could check off #1. And, well, #3—no guests—was in the bag.
Salt, sweet, bitter, sour, umami
Unfortunately, I am still turning 57—did not make that up—and I still need a structure for this blog.
So I started thinking about how spices add vibrancy to food and was reminded of the five tastes: salt, sweet, bitter, sour, and umami. How do these five tastes show up as metaphor in life?
Smoking is the new smoking
I’ve written before that I believe smoking went out of fashion because leisure went out of fashion. We don’t smoke because we don’t have time. Sure, smoking has health risks, but that’s secondary. The real health risk is our perpetual harvest, grind culture—that and not being rich.
So tell me what you want, what you really, really want
As I approach my 57th birthday, and America approaches summer’s opening weekend (Memorial Day) and the imminent destruction of its economy, democracy, and world standing, I find myself unconcerned about living up to Jackie’s restraint and worried about living in Marilyn’s vivacity.
A broken record
It’s not about being repetitive and irritating; it’s about setting a higher standard.
The work of receiving
Fr. Mark-Mary says the work of receiving at Christmas is celebration—opening the gift and opening to the gift. And at other times of year, the work of receiving is just work.
The Summer Go Bag: XL Edition
The summer is my waiting room, and I want it to be more than hydrated, tidy, and safe. I need to pack a bigger bag for a bolder summer.
Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before
From May 2026, I look back over the last five years of writing and life and realize how much has changed. Same person, same place, same month but totally different story.
First Sleep, Second Sleep
Now that I, like Hamlet, have been released from the responsibility of studies, and can manage my own sleeping and waking times for the summer, I may allow myself to follow a practice of segmented sleep.
May Day
Photo by thom masat on Unsplash
I have not even been going through the motions of writing lately but, unsurprisingly, I found some paper here in the waiting room.