You know those big clocks they have in institutions - schools, hospitals? You know how they go when the batteries are almost dead? The second hand keeps flicking forward and dropping back. It counts the seconds, but the hands don't turn. It can fool you - you look up and think "Oh, it's 9.30" or ten past two, or whatever, and then when y…
You know those big clocks they have in institutions - schools, hospitals? You know how they go when the batteries are almost dead? The second hand keeps flicking forward and dropping back. It counts the seconds, but the hands don't turn. It can fool you - you look up and think "Oh, it's 9.30" or ten past two, or whatever, and then when you look back half an hour later it's still 9.30, or ten past two, or whatever.
Time in waiting rooms is like that. It ticks by, but somehow it doesn't move. It becomes liquid - pooling, eddying, slipping between your fingers.
Waiting rooms are liminal spaces. You sit there, suspended between health and sickness, barrenness and pregnancy, hope and fear. Everything is different. Footsteps resonate. Conversations happen in lurching whispers. Your heartbeat might be the fiercest thing in the universe. You hold your most private fears in your lap in a relentlessly public space. Out there in the real world you have multiple roles. in here you only have one.
The last consultant I had used to have ridiculously overbooked clinics. It must have been hard for him: there's a limit to how quickly you can see a patient, listen to them, examine them, and then work out a plan with them. Once you got in there you were never rushed, he gave you all the time you needed. You just had to wait for it.
We expected to wait a couple of hours. We took books and people-watched. We kept our conversation light and meaningless. What is there to say, anyway? I love you. I'm scared. How long have we got in the carpark? Do we need to get milk on the way home? I love you. I'm scared.
Sarah - I feel more with each contribution from you that I am reading a book in progress... in that I am wanting to spend more time in your sensibility/language/experience and feel that these are indeed becoming parts of a larger whole? I hope so. Here is your link, with thanks and respect as ever. Tx
Brilliant interpretation of the hell of doctor's waiting rooms, Sarah. The vulnerabilities and the strength. You take me right inside. And I love the ending.
Sarah, I read your post in the craft question section and I was thinking as I read more of your work, does it need to be a continuous narrative? You have these amazing, powerful vignettes, the detailing here when you go back and forth in the waiting room from fear, to milk, to love, to the meaningless, the stuck clock, it sent me back to every time I've been in a waiting room. I think you could do a whole book of those which seems fitting since this is often how life, especially chronic illness is, these moments that jump out at us, concise and powerful.
You know those big clocks they have in institutions - schools, hospitals? You know how they go when the batteries are almost dead? The second hand keeps flicking forward and dropping back. It counts the seconds, but the hands don't turn. It can fool you - you look up and think "Oh, it's 9.30" or ten past two, or whatever, and then when you look back half an hour later it's still 9.30, or ten past two, or whatever.
Time in waiting rooms is like that. It ticks by, but somehow it doesn't move. It becomes liquid - pooling, eddying, slipping between your fingers.
Waiting rooms are liminal spaces. You sit there, suspended between health and sickness, barrenness and pregnancy, hope and fear. Everything is different. Footsteps resonate. Conversations happen in lurching whispers. Your heartbeat might be the fiercest thing in the universe. You hold your most private fears in your lap in a relentlessly public space. Out there in the real world you have multiple roles. in here you only have one.
The last consultant I had used to have ridiculously overbooked clinics. It must have been hard for him: there's a limit to how quickly you can see a patient, listen to them, examine them, and then work out a plan with them. Once you got in there you were never rushed, he gave you all the time you needed. You just had to wait for it.
We expected to wait a couple of hours. We took books and people-watched. We kept our conversation light and meaningless. What is there to say, anyway? I love you. I'm scared. How long have we got in the carpark? Do we need to get milk on the way home? I love you. I'm scared.
Sarah - I feel more with each contribution from you that I am reading a book in progress... in that I am wanting to spend more time in your sensibility/language/experience and feel that these are indeed becoming parts of a larger whole? I hope so. Here is your link, with thanks and respect as ever. Tx
https://thecureforsleep.com/september-issue-on-time/#sarahconnor
Brilliant interpretation of the hell of doctor's waiting rooms, Sarah. The vulnerabilities and the strength. You take me right inside. And I love the ending.
Sarah, I read your post in the craft question section and I was thinking as I read more of your work, does it need to be a continuous narrative? You have these amazing, powerful vignettes, the detailing here when you go back and forth in the waiting room from fear, to milk, to love, to the meaningless, the stuck clock, it sent me back to every time I've been in a waiting room. I think you could do a whole book of those which seems fitting since this is often how life, especially chronic illness is, these moments that jump out at us, concise and powerful.