Meditations of a Waiting Room

Today we meditated: father, son
And waited on a Wednesday afternoon
To see the doctor of attention spans
Whom we had hoped to meet at four pm
But found her overbooked and in demand.
We found ourselves within a waiting room
Of fellow patients of psychiatry
(And those of us along for the support)
For two full hours, and ironically
Amid the stacks of social magazines
And with a background television on,
Among a sampling of the population
Listening to hear their names be called,
We meditated. Unexpectedly

My son, the one who never could sit still,
Is starting to mature before my eyes.
He’s waiting here more patiently than me,
And I begin to wonder anymore
If he’d been diagnosed with ADD
A bit to hastily back in the day
When he was acting all of eight years old
And telegraphing his apparent need
For Adderol, if we have come this far
Again to have his old prescription filled
More out of habit than necessity,
And if there isn’t better therapy
In meditations of a waiting room
Than medications of amphetamine.

Today we meditated: everyone
Who waited with us had a different need,
A different habit, if their trials be told,
And yet we seem to be so much the same,
At least as far as anyone reveals.
I don’t begrudge the doctor for her role
In getting us to recognize ourselves
And realize how simple life can be,
How we all need this opportunity
Of time, however given, to reflect
On simple things, like having empathy
Or understanding our maturity
Or sitting in positions of support
Or being patient in a waiting room.

My father once was in a waiting room
For me. The wait was relatively short
And our trial was a different one to tell,
A different diagnosis, but the same
Prognosis: Give it time, give it time.
The doctor didn’t specify these words
Or scribble his prescription b.i.d.,
But as he had my father wait outside
He talked to me a while, and then he asked
If I played chess. This took me by surprise,
But I said yes, and so the troubled teen
And the Psy.D. played chess while the old man
Was waiting in the hall, more patiently
Than I appreciated, until now.

Here's Another

Here’s another for the symposium.  I do know how a month can fly by easily, so certainly no excuses required for the rest of you - but I’d love to get back to that initial burst of our sympositional experiment!

Anne, thank you for inviting and sharing with me, already a month ago, this year’s Ebert Fest movie selection, Louder Than a Bomb. That film has stuck with me quite a bit, even as I have had no time to write my due appreciation. Dan, you will like this one, about poetry slamming, teenagers discovering their identity and creativity and an inter-school system that “tricks” students into cheering for poetry.

Mom, thanks for orchestrating Andrew’s twelfth birthday scavenger hunt. You’ve got a great tradition going, and now just seven or eight more to go! A flexible count only because I don’t know if you’ll have Kevin and Josey look for clues together. Will they, as a team, be the first not to rely on their dad to help them solve the clues?

Josh, one of these days I’d like to come for one of your sermons, but in the mean time I’m happy to see you going in this direction. It would probably be a bit daunting, never mind the logistical unlikelihood, if our whole weekend gathering followed you home for your July 12 sermon, but do let me know if I can slip into the Trinity pews some other Sunday morning.

And Dan, we are looking forward to seeing you, and you all, in July. I haven’t decided on any nominations for your top ten album list yet, but Kirsten suggests Vampire Weekend, Contra as number 9 and Talking Heads ‘77 as number 4. I’m more in tune with her second choice.

Anyway, here is my symposial offering, a true story poem based on an experience Andrew and I had just last week. One or two editorial explanations: Adenol did not start until last year, but the diagnosis preceded it by several years. And we’re not ready yet to say no more, but the thought has crossed my mind.