Wait Time

Gare de Bordeaux-St-Jean, Bordeaux, France.

"Beloved, our great and pressing need today is to give ourselves to waiting upon God, because waiting time is never wasted time." - Ian Hamilton


So this is it. The moment we've all been waiting for. Years, and weeks, and minutes, and seconds have led to this. So much hard work has led to this.

 I peer over my toes down to the tracks. I know there are other people on the platform, but it doesn't seem like it. I know there are other people here, just like me, but it doesn't seem like it. There are others waiting, but it truly seems like I am the only one. It seems like I'm alone in this.

There's a huge clock on the wall. It ticks. I know when the train's supposed to arrive. I know when I'm supposed to leave on it. I know all the things that I have planned and replanned and then planned again. I've memorized it. I've mapped it out and changed it a million times. It's part of me now, and this train's late.

Everything I've done, all my efforts, and thoughts, and premeditations are slowly diminished with every minute that this train is late. Every second that ticks by on the smallest hand is a spindly crack in my carefully laid plans. Crack, after crack, after crack, after crack. Tick tock.

Slowly, in step and time with the littlest hand, every result of me getting on this train falls away.

My plans. Tick.
My ideas. Tock.
My goals. Tick.
My life. Tock.


I eventually turn from the clock. I sit on the bench. I wait.

The next train is not direct, making some stops on the way. I'll sit in random cities while others board and get off. I'll stare out the window at a place I've never really wanted to be. I'll be there for ten minutes, the train station being my only experience of a place where many live, a place that many call home. Then the train will leave. The train will arrive.

But for now, I've been benched. For now, I wait.

I watch people walk past. I stop the tiny gears in my head that are trying to recalculate all my plans based on this recent restriction. My destination will be there when I arrive. And long after I eventually leave it.

Wait time is a teaching term. It's used to describe the time the teacher waits after posing a question. An ideal wait time ranges between 5-9 seconds. Wait time is a tool. Wait time is used by a teacher to measure the knowledge of his or her students. Wait time is hard to perfect when you know exactly where you're going and how you're going to do it. No one learns without wait time. It's a time of concentrated stress for the student when they are required to come up with an answer. The students have to trust their knowledge in order to find an answer. The teacher has to trust the students so he or she doesn't look like a fool, waiting for an answering, standing in front of many sets of eyes.

No one learns without wait time.
Wait time requires trust.