Waiting

December 8, 2025

Greetings from the state of suspension,

People are lining the walls in uncomfortable chairs looking at their phones, feet crossed on scuffed linoleum flooring.  There are wobbly tables scattered around, covered with tattered magazines. The TV is on, mounted near the ceiling, flickering a reality show, which is ironic considering that reality is what is happening on this side of the screen.

Everyone is waiting in their own way, but one thing that is nearly universal is that most everyone is isolated, surrounded by other people.

The people selling tires are not concerned about this dynamic.  They put the dirty plastic chairs out, scattered the ten-year-old Field and Stream magazines, and turned on the TV. For extra ambience, the smell of rubber and burned coffee. Check.

The template is repeated in hospitals, in doctors’ offices, at the DMV, in bus terminals. The smells are different, but the stares are the same.  A room filled with people and emptiness.

I think many people want it this way.  They don’t want strangers to start conversations with them, telling them about their condition, or their grandchild’s soccer game. They will pass the time by watching Court TV or scrolling through their phone. The people in the plastic chairs are not necessarily unhappy, but maybe not at their best either. 

Some people come to wait from other places they waited.  Maybe their living room, or the office, or the lobby of the hotel or the room at the care facility.  Some were alone there too, but now we are really good at carrying the aloneness with us into a room of other people. It’s what we have in common.

I have pretended that these other people and I are at an AA meeting or at a Quaker prayer service, or we are subjects in an experiment: see how long you can avoid eye contact with the other people in this room. Sometimes I imagine aliens at the door: “And in here is where we keep our spare parts.”

Sometimes I play a judging game I just labeled ‘How Petty Can I Be?’. I’m not proud of it, but I suspect everyone has a version of it, which should be redeeming but doesn’t feel like it now.

Occasionally I will puncture this bubble and talk to other people.  Sometimes they welcome it, other times, you can tell, it was a mistake. Right now, you might be nodding, because you get it: leave me alone.  Not another old guy who wants to talk about politics or the Depression or that thing he got lanced on his back.  

I do it anyway. It’s a risk, but some days it feels like it’s worth it.  Waiting rooms aren’t necessarily where we get meaningful connections with other people, but we can get something more than vacuous stares accompanied by a Fox News soundtrack.

I can be content sitting in the airport terminal, reading my book, people watching, napping.  It is a space for waiting, so I can practice waiting.  I can also practice not bothering other people. I can sit quietly, in spite of my reputation.  There are people in my life who say, “David’s talking to someone again.” This is accompanied by an eye roll that registers on seismographs.

I do it anyway. I know that when I have a brief conversation with someone it has a minimal effect in our lives.  But I am also convinced it matters, in a small way, one that seasons the countless other small things that happen in our day.

A few weeks ago, I struck up a conversation with a woman in the airport, both of us waiting for the same plane.  It blossomed into quite an exchange, and the time passed in a different way from how it might have. We both got a sample of each other, probably a little more interesting than whatever waited on our phone. When we got up to board our plane, we said goodbye, both smiling.  If we left it at that, I would describe it as satisfying for both parties.

Later I was walking down the aisle of the plane, trying to remember my seat number, and I saw the woman, Lynn, and when she saw me she lit up with a glimmer of happiness.  She recognized me among a hundred strangers and was glad for the connection.  That little spark of ‘I know you’, an echo from an ordinary conversation only ten minutes before, is one of the little joys that all of us have experienced.  Without it, maybe we don’t notice the absence, but I think it matters.

Countless times I have spoken to strangers in these places.  Sometimes it is a single sentence exchanged and I know right away that is the end.  And other times, it begins a story that leads to another, and soon we have exchanged better versions of ourselves than what the waiting room asked for.

It doesn’t change much, doesn’t change this waiting room, or the mindless drivel on TV or the addiction to phones.  It doesn’t change the world, it changes me.  I am practicing curiosity, kindness and patience.  I am practicing asking questions and not talking pointlessly about myself. I am not giving in to the default aloneness. And sometimes it makes a positive difference for the next person.

We spend many hours waiting in spaces like this, and maybe it’s a break from other demands, like your kids, or the job, or traffic, and so maybe it’s a relief.  But it occurred to me that it is so far from the best life we are meant for, the life we probably search for everywhere else, that we owe it to ourselves to make more of the waiting.

Hope this finds you turning to say hello,

David

Copyright © 2025 David Smith