What is the difference between waiting and procrastination?

I had so much fun last fall with my camera and the colors in the trees.  We had a flock of cranes that were in the same field every day for weeks.  I couldn’t wait for the time to come to spend looking and seeing and just saying “AWE”.

It never came.  One day my sister was leaving our house and said “The cranes are back!”  I had 5 minutes but I went out and observed and captured some moments with them.  That was it.  They were there later on in the day when I had time and they never were there again.  The colors were muted – alright – but they weren’t the brilliant colors from last year.  I had in my mind what I wanted to write and do but I kept putting it off – waiting for the cranes and waiting for the colors.

Then life got in the way and I got busy doing other things.  My camera lay as dormant as trees with their leaves on the ground.  My husband saw a huge flock of cranes and I was only 15 minutes behind him but by the time I got there, there were only 5 birds in the field.  In the process of being disappointed, I realized that I missed my opportunity to be disciplined in my writings. I had other things to write about but I just never sat down and did it.  I had opportunities to take my camera and even my husband reminding me to take it, but it didn’t come out of it’s case.   Time flies away and you forget what your schedule is and what you intend to do.  Other things fill the time which once held your writing and seeing life with the camera.

At first I didn’t miss it because I was busy.  Lately I have had nagging guilt and a pull to go back. I am missing my own growth.  I am missing my times of sharing.   Now I have to carve out time from an overfull schedule that I had made myself.  I remembered long ago seeing and reading a play “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett.  For me, the take away from this was you can’t just wait for something to happen.  You need to go out with purpose and live life.  Purpose and mindfulness comes from our life and living rather than in waiting for something to happen from the outside.

I also am aware that life is in cycles.  Sometimes the writing and images are just to soak up – like the sun on a warm day – to remember on the cold days.  I love the children’s book Frederick by Leo Lionni.  All the mice are busy collecting seeds and other things to store for the long winter.  Frederick sits and collects the rays of the sun.  In the cold winter his stories and words bring the rays of the sun into the cold place they are.  His collection keeps them warm.  We are to collect stories and images to help us as well as we helping others.  I hope you have done some collecting as we are entering the winter time.  May we journey together to help each other in the times of “cold” as we “remember” those images and words that help keep us focused and moving and living.