Aj Schwanz

Somedays wonderful things come your way: I’m so glad someone’s got a handle on things I need to get me through life.

Jason’s gone on a trip; the cat’s been freaked out by the neighbor’s dog; Judah’s got diaper rash and a cold; I missed a meeting due to lack of sitter; and my nightly injuries consist of a forked temple (thank you, son) and a cracked tooth (thank you, Soy Nuts). I didn’t know a chunk of your tooth could just fall off - some things you just don’t really want to know.

As I sat next to the bathtub where Judah was soaking his baboon butt, I looked over a copy of Cooks Illustrated. This magazine is partners with the folks who do America’s Test Kitchen which is like Alton Brown, but not as ADD and a little more anal. A copy just showed up in our mailbox today - I don’t know why, and I’m not going to ask: I’ve never been one to turn away food stuffs. Of course, they want me to sign up for a real subscription AND they’ll rush me a microplane grater. Tempting . . .

The first article/editorial is titled “Waiting for the Run,” written by Christopher Kimball (the lead host, a.k.a. guy with the bowtie) talking about having to wait to harvest sap for syrup.

If you spend much time in the country, you are used to waiting. Each year, we wait for the corn to come up, the pigs to put on weight, the potatoes to mature, the river to go down, the ground to thaw out, the rain to come, the rain to stop (I’m sure that’s a shout out to us in the Pacific Northwest), and the weather to clear for haying. Nothing is immediate. Everything is in the process of becoming. One older neighbor received a new hat for Christmas. When asked why his significant other didn’t also give him a pair of gloves, he remarked, “Well, I’m going to have to wait ’til next year. She isn’t sure I’m going to last.” No point spending money on a new pair of gloves if you aren’t going to get some use out of them.

The last part made me giggle - a nice restbit from a day majoring in “uhoh” rather than “haha.”

These past couple of weeks I’ve been antsy: I don’t know if I’m tired of the winter gray or realizing that spring’s coming or feeling something new moving this way. I’ve been impatient, and in proper generational form, I believe something should be happening . . . NOW. Folks keep saying things like “direction takes time,” “growth doesn’t happen overnight,” “God moves slowly.” But both personally and corporately, I’m tappin’ my toes waiting for my need for instant gratification to be satisfied. I don’t want to become; I want to be.

We just have to learn to be patient, to know that our time is spent in transition, in waiting rooms of our imagination. And then, one day, we wake up and realize that the sap isn’t going to run. There will be no boil, no steam, and no syrup. The fish doesn’t rise to the fly, the woods remain cold and empty, and you never see your friend again. I guess we had better learn to enjoy the waiting.

Not everything comes, even if I wait. Not everything happens the way I think it should - from days that were supposed to be spent editing rather than recouping, to spiritual changes that seem like crawling rather than running. I guess that’s why my birth certificate doesn’t say “God” on it, eh? So, how does one enjoy the waiting? I guess by reading “serendipitous” magazines and getting splashed with bubbles from the neighboring bather - that could be a good start.