TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown.

A few months ago I spoke to Ann Tashi Slater, author of the book Traveling in Bardo: The Art of Living in an Impermanent World.

The concept of bardo in Tibetan Buddhism refers to the interval between death and rebirth — and the intermediate state between birth and death — but it also refers more generally to liminal periods in life. In-between times. The times when we’re neither here nor there.

Ann and I talked about bardo in relation to marriage, divorce, and other big life transitions. We talked about how change in life is the only constant, and how much suffering can result from resisting change and grasping for something we cannot have: permanence.

Thinking about it now, I realize how much “waiting” is a kind of bardo. Waiting on test results from a doctor. Waiting for a jury to deliberate and make a decision. Waiting for a ruling by a judge. Waiting for a call after an accident or a disaster to know your loved ones are safe.

The waiting is a kind of purgatory, a middle ground. In that liminal, in-between space, we alternate between hope and fear. Some despair might creep in, too. Everything will be okay, we tell ourselves one minute. The worst has happened, we tell ourselves the next. Even the metaphors for waiting are deeply uncomfortable. Treading water. Being on pins and needles, or on tenterhooks. Waiting is hard on the body because it’s hard on the mind.

Today’s poem captures the torturous waiting for news, good or bad, in that purgatory when life as the speaker knows it hinges on a phone call.

Waiting for the Call I Am
by Wyatt Townley

Not the girl
                 after the party
waiting for boy wonder

                 Not the couple
after the test
                 awaiting word

Not the actor
                 after the callback
for the job that changes everything

                 Not the mother
on the floor
                 whose son has gone missing

I am the beloved
and you are the beloved

                 We’re all beside ourselves
                 as the phone is beside ourselves

One hand grips the menu
the other covers the eyes

                 Now the phone rings
                 it is singing on the table

To the dog across the room
to the waitress who is waiting

                 To the cat on the carpet
                 to the couple in the next booth

But the heart is in the cupboard
breaking the dishes

"Waiting for the Call I Am" by Wyatt Townley. Used by permission of the poet.