Light in the Waiting Room

WaitingRoomLamp

I sat in the waiting room for the final appointment with my surgeon last week. The lamp on the table beside me was on even though it was daytime and fairly bright in the fluorescent hospital lighting. It struck me as odd, to have a lamp in a waiting room that was already lit with overhead lights. I marveled at the shape of the lamp, the light it was barely exuding, and the surroundings…a few tattered magazines, an art print on the wall…nothing special.

But it occurred to me that this moment, all these waiting room moments, COULD be special, if I just had an eye for it. From the first time I waited in this particular room back in April of 2014, so much has happened. I am different, physically and otherwise. Life is different. My outlook on life is different. This would be the last time (hopefully) that I would ever need to sit here. Sock knitting in my lap.

Special? Maybe not. But that lamp has stayed with me. I keep thinking:

There’s always a light in the waiting rooms of life.

Waiting rooms are everywhere. At soccer practice. In grocery store lines. In traffic. At intersections. We wait for vacations to come, for the weekend to arrive, for our ship to come in, for a big break, or just for life to make sense. And while we wait, life happens.

I want to be a waiting room artist. Ha! That sounds pathetic doesn’t it? I don’t mean that I want my artwork on the walls of waiting rooms across the medical community, although that wouldn’t be bad at all! What I mean by being a waiting room artist is someone who seizes the waiting room moments of life and looks for beauty, sees the light there, and creates in and throughout the waiting room days. Yep. That’s what I want to be. In fact, I think I already am, I just haven’t named it as such. Perhaps in naming this as my desire and goal, I will have less impatience in the waiting room moments. Perhaps I will stop pacing for the BIG moments and just reach for the special stuff already there in the waiting room.

This is a high calling I believe. It is the pinnacle of artful living. Being the kind of artist who takes his/her creativity into every moment of their day no matter the mundane activity at hand. Waiting can be FULL of LIGHT!

I just need to look for the lamp. Draw it. Collage it. And knit by it.

0 thoughts on “Light in the Waiting Room

  1. Marie says:

    Beautiful Jennifer! It’s the art of being able to calm your mind and see the opportunity in those moments I think. Sometimes there is so much going through your head that you don’t realise it. I hope your appointment with your surgeon went well. Marie x

Leave a Reply to Sandra Torguson Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *