I Am Waiting…

…To eat the first ripe tomato in my garden. One that is bigger than a cherry so I can slice it for my sourdough toast. I do not remember ever waiting this long, and if checking on them could produce results, I would have had slices of vine-ripened tomato weeks ago. They are large and green, very green, but apparently we have not had enough hot sunshine yet. Even the dog who loves tomatoes has become impatient. Yesterday she picked an enormous slicer, very green, and brought it guiltily to me.

…For Greg’s car to sell so I don’t have to move it to a different spot in the yard every time we mow. There have been many interested parties, but when they hear that it needs a new exhaust system, they turn sadly away. Or they turn away, sadly.

…For my neighbor to notice that we are perfectly capable of mowing our own grass. He is a good neighbor, especially because he has a personal vendetta against chicken-stealing raccoons, of which there are many in this area. He simply cannot resist mowing a stripe along the front of our lawn as he passes to mow the other neighbor’s lawn, with his deck set much lower than we do. It may be a picayune thing to be bothered about, but it does bother me. It has just occurred to me that Gregory parked his for-sale car on that side of the lane yesterday, straddling the stripe. Maybe we have solved the problem without any hard feelings, because surely he will not attempt to mow around a car…? Stay tuned for further bulletins on this country drama.

…For the guy who said he could come fix our driveway in mid-July. Now that it is mid-August, I am guessing a suitable amount of time has elapsed. I am curious why contractors of services do this? Are they ever early? Is it so that people are duly impressed by how busy they are and extra happy to pay them for the work that they didn’t do in the time they said they would? I just wonder about these things. Would it really be so hard to put a buffer into your calendar so that you can show up when you said you would?

…To use the bagged mulch I bought on clearance and stacked under the sunporch awning. It has an assignment: the borders along the lane, but I can’t use them until the guy who fixes driveways comes.

…For inspiration to braid the garlic that is drying in the shed, and to make more pickles with the accumulation of cucumbers in the fridge. Unlike the tomatoes, the cucumbers are having a heyday of a summer.

…For my probiotics to do all the amazing things that they said they will do. It would also be nice for my body to figure out how it’s going to behave for the rest of my life. Does anybody know how long that wait will be?

…For a slightly slower pace of life where we can pick up our morning read-aloud tradition before we do lessons. When Addy confided in me with shining eyes, “I think this school year is going to be really fun,” she was thinking about extra stories, tea and poetry, and fun supplies from Walmart. She was not thinking so much about getting in some serious progress in the math books in August so that we can travel without math books in September, but here we are.

…For our Walmart to get its act together and stop remodeling and just have things where they are supposed to be so that I can find matches and toilet paper without hunting through half the store. My sympathies are with the elderly gentleman who grumped to me, “They are just doing this on purpose so I have to walk all over the place and see more stuff to buy.”

…For a good place to sell some of my extra chickens, but not the sale barn, because I took five of my prized pullets there, almost old enough to start laying olive-colored eggs. The pullets I babied and hand-raised after their mother got eaten by a raccoon, and I got two bucks apiece for them. It appears they kept half as a fee so that my check in the mail was five dollars. Hilarious.  

…For my dahlias to bloom. They are really underachieving this year, and the only reason I can think of is that they are planted closer to the other perennials because I didn’t want them to get destroyed when the driveway gets fixed, only they would have been fine in the normal place. Maybe like the tomatoes, they have not had enough brilliant sunshine in this summer of overcast skies from wildfires and abundant rain. Normally I take in cuttings all through August, but they are only just starting to bud a little bit.

…To taste the blackberry kefir to see if it is as special as the raspberry was.

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I learned about making “I am waiting” lists in the writing course I took this spring. It is an interesting way to explore what is going on inside. This list happens to be a trivial one of everyday waits. They have their merit; they shape character, as anyone who has waited for their first taste of a vine-ripened tomato knows. They are not like the earnest yearnings/waitings of the soul: for slaves set free, for tears wiped away, for peace on earth, for equality, for all Creation to be redeemed. There are things I am one hundred percent convinced God will do in His time. I keep faith, and I wait.

(Maybe the longer we wait for the desire to be fulfilled, the greater the glory.)

What are you waiting for?