What are you done waiting for?

When was the last time you cried?

For me, it was this past Monday. I was on Zoom, part of Laurie Wagner’s Wild Writing community, where she does live calls every two weeks. The format is simple-but-not-easy: she reads a poem, gives a few prompts, and then you write for 15 minutes non-stop, pen never leaving the page, not trying to create a “thing” but trying to get words onto the page without the inner critic showing up to say “that’s shit.” Because the shit is the point!

Anyway, every two weeks, she reads one poem, then we write, and then she reads a second, and we write. The first poem, doesn’t matter which one, didn’t do much for me but I wrote 15 minutes worth of words. There was maybe a touch of something towards the end, but nothing that would make me ever think of turning it into more.

The second poem was Christmas at Midlife by Mary Anne Perrone. It can be found in its entirety here, and the repeating refrain is “I am no longer waiting.” The moment Laurie began to read, I smiled, and then felt pricks behind my eyes.

I am no longer waiting for a special occasion; I burn the best candles on ordinary days.

I am no longer waiting for the house to be clean; I fill it with people who understand that even dust is Sacred.

I am no longer waiting for everyone to understand me; It’s just not their task

By the end of the poem, I had tears in my eyes, not quite running down, but enough to make my vision blurry. I had to wipe my eyes before I could start writing. My nose was running. And of course, writing to the prompt “I am no longer waiting” bloated those tears so that they coursed down my cheeks, dripping onto the page of my notebook, and then fifteen minutes later after I was done when I put my notebook away, I put my forehead onto my desk and when I lifted it, there were two perfect circles of salty water under where my eyes had been. 

The power of words, to release emotion. To release tears.

Where did this come from?