We waited for this moment. Now what?
He told me to wait.
15 minutes. Clicker in hand he started the timer.
He handed me a yellow post-it with my number on it. Another client in what was a pool of privilege. Not discriminated by color or age but access.
I fiddled my thumbs. Listening to the worship playlist I made in anticipation of moments of potential anxiety. The lyrics flowing across my ears seemed to hit exactly the circumstance, like a perfectly placed soundtrack in an otherwise forgettable movie.
"While I'm waiting I'll be praising..."
Thinking about the brief moment between when I walked into the office to the small back space where a woman younger would be responsible for providing me with something that would help save my life.
I couldn't help but think back,
365 rotations.
To a time when a future was as gray as the rainy sky covering Queens now.
I thought about the mentors and friends who were lost.
Reduced to a stillness on this Earth that we so deeply fear.
How a FaceTime with my parents forced me to confront mortality and appreciation.
I thought about the habits and hobbies built.
How strangers became family.
How friends became memories.
I remembered banana bread and carrot cake, Lysol wipes, and the third coffee break during zoom. Cinco de Mayo was as it should be, just another rotation of the sun.
"While I'm waiting I'll be praising."
In that waiting room, my clock still ticked. I'd lost track of my worry and my music continued. The lyrics consistent and the track swelled to a crescendo. I listened to that song and surveyed the faces beside me. Eyes dipped in relief, others in prayer. What were their lessons? Did this season lead their awakening as much as it seems to have shocked the core of a society so desperately yearning to get back to normal.
Or a "new" normal.
“Perhaps the issue isn’t the new but the normal?”
I rubbed my knees. Feeling something flow through my body, a foreign substance that is working with my temple. My heart rate decreased some. A resting level more aligned with sitting on a crowded subway en route to Times Square.
Do you remember the subway? Waiting for a destination in complete surrender for the moment.
"While I'm waiting I'll be praising."
There's a slight waiting period.
We've waited.
Waiting for a medicine that would become as reflective of capitalism as the companies that own them. I noticed how our questions grew from intrigue around access to running to compare products.
“Which shot did you get?”
Was it Pfizer? Moderna? Ooo..you got Johnson and Johnson.
We judge these new lifelines like contestants on a Netflix reality show.
Post our experience of getting a shot like Hamilton tickets. A once in a lifetime lottery.
Because we’re not throwing away ours.
So I waited.
I hear the song tell me words that churn my soul but fuel my spirit.
"Don't rush be patient."
Patient for elections and good weather.
Marches balanced by a world shifting in philosophy
Waiting became synonymous with Black names
Breonna Taylor.
…8 minutes and 46 seconds…
A pain pushed aside in lieu of sprints towards insurrection
"It's not about just waiting it's about what you do when you're waiting"
I thought about that lyric.
My timer rings and the nurse sends me on my way. That was it.
A shot that would save my life.
Something that could have saved my mentor Mark Blum.
Or the wisdom of Mona.
Or the laugh of Charlie.
Or the heart of Jeremiah Trusty.
And many others.
I left the small office that would be a sanctuary to India.
I thought about India.
I thought about privilege.
I thought about my grandparents and their grandparents.
I thought about what waiting costs.
The world's push to open up again. The anxiety of comparison and hustle wanting desperately to rear their ugly heads. Back from hibernation. I prayed for artists' hearts.
I prayed for the pandemic puppies that their families remain families and not fixes.
"Culture may try to push me, prematurely...but I'm going to wait."
As I walked back to the apartment under rainy skies I looked at the number I was assigned at the office coupled with the vaccination card.
Wild how an index card can spell possibility in this world.
“The number was 10.
Creation. Harmony. Perfection”
The Creator uttered commands ten times.
I thought about the laws and principles of man.
I try not to spiral too far into meaning, wouldn't want to work myself up.
At that my song came to an end.
"It's not about just waiting it's about what you do when you're waiting"
I got home. Fueled with plenty of fluids and Advil in preparation for a day of rest and all I can think about is the power of our wait. What the world has tomorrow ain't worth losing the peace of this moment.
…So while we wait I'll stick to praising at this moment.