I’m waiting for some friends to pick me up in their car.

All around me, people are coming and going on errands, on their way to meet friends or loved ones or business acquaintances. Some are hurrying, others earnest, some struggling with the pain of simple movement. Seagulls are calling. There’s a distinctive fresh salty tang to the air. The sun is low, soft-edged, orange-yellow in the late afternoon sky.

But I miss all of it. Because a small device in my pocket, bevel-edged and glassy, has grabbed my attention. I’m enchanted, responding to emails, checking for news that I’m wanted and needed, feeling the weight and promise of everything I’ve offered to do for myself and for others.

And I’m at least a little afraid of what I’ll feel if I put this down.

Wherever I am I always have something to do. I’m defined by my doing, my to-do, my not-yet-done. I become, always, some form of producer or some form of consumer.

And, because of this, I no longer know so much about the art of waiting.

I am rarely freed, rarely cut loose to fall into the depths of my own longing, my confusion, my boredom, or my simple capacity to wonder at all that is around me.

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