Waiting

People waiting for a bus anxiously try to know when the next bus is arriving. They look up repeatedly at the lighted marker or google the bus checker on their iPhone.  Some step out on the road to look for a distant sight of an oncoming bus.  If the notice reports that the next bus arrives in seven minutes and it does not, they get irritated. The fact is that one comes when it comes.   If the wait is seven minutes, one only comes in seven minutes, supposedly, no sooner, no later.  This is the essential nature of anxiety.  All anxieties are superfluous.  A watched kettle never boils, we say; but it always does eventually.  It boils over dry, if we don't watch it; the bus we were waiting for came and and it went without me.

12/18/19