The meaning is in the waiting. R.S. Thomas
For some reason, I have tended to think of this blog as an autumn-winter thing, and not as a spring-summer one. I guess the slowness of fall and winter is more obvious than that of their more awakened counterparts. But, beneath the surface it needn't be the case, for even in the hottest season of the year, and 2014 was pretty damn hot for Glasgow, there is slowness and stillness and room for contemplation. I think the reason was that I was so invested in my Cycling Meditations (both blogs are interchangeable and should be seen as two limbs from the same body-mind) this spring and summer that I clean forgot (not about flowing slowly but) about this blog. Still, I keep a journal, and as I was flicking through it I found this rain-spattered entry for Thursday, August 13th:
[As a precursor, I have always been interested in language and the origin and relationships of words. In this case, the words are 'wait' and 'wake' and if you check out their etymologies you might find that they are not so different in their origins, coming from Old High German wahhon "to watch, be awake," related to Old English wacian "to be awake".... This has had a profound effect on me in several situations of waiting for several hours at a time: at a deserted Turkish-Greek border station waiting four hours for a train to Alexandroupoli, and at another deserted train station in Kashubia in northern Poland waiting for a train to Gdansk from Żukowo, as well as other similar points in time-space. The key here is the solitude and the silence with the actual waiting, which strangely allows the self to waken up to its surroundings in a way that is not normally evident. Waiting, thus, in such spots of silence, is actually awakening to the greater self, and should not be seen as some sort of chore as we have to view it in the west. It is perhaps more akin to an African waiting, where time-space dissolves into self and vice versa]. Anyway.... Thursday, August 13th:
Thursday, by the Kelvin - a light rain - a 'light' 'rain': can there be anything as fundamentally resuscitative? Light and water by the Kelvin, and a little cloud. And not a soul about. Even the birds have taken to the insides of trees, except that is, for the grey wagtail bobbing up and down on the river.
Utter peace. The rain seems to keep down the dust (not just of dirt and man, but of sound and echo). As a result, it is a peacefulness that is unequal to, let's say, the tranquility at the tops of mountains.
I'm waiting for big Ewan and a delivery of 'lemon'. The wood pigeons light up the sonic corridor of this Kelvin gallery. It really is a little paradise. Indeed, my writing and my thinking (can one's thinking ever be one's own?) seem improved immensely by these few drops of rain. When I see the fools with their little designer umbrellas almost taking your eye out with their inconsiderate behaviour I have nothing but pity for them and their rain/heat/wind/ proof garments and add-ons. Effectively, they are, in their brain-washed (not rain-washed as it perhaps should be!) states, living proof that you can become life-proof.
Oh give me rain any day!
Waiting is waking!!
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