Waiting

Sitting waiting for something that never shows up.

It is a way to learn patience, I am sure that the Zen masters would approve as I sit exercising my patience like one would a muscle, testing its tolerance for ever greater and greater feats of endurance.

A girl and her boy throw a ball between mitts.  It runs past her a couple of times and she apologises profusely as I put down my book and throw it back to her, laughing to try to show it is no inconvenience even though I don’t have the words to reassure her properly.

There are people doing the Brazilian dance thing I never remember the name of, it is a club or a lesson so they are warming up in unison.  Games of badminton, baseball and football are circling as the joggers flow past.  Parents and grandparents throwing balls, kids really are climbing trees.  This should have been a great day in the park for us to share, all of you sitting here with me, instead some of you had fled while others queued for anti-radiation pills I remain irrationally convinced we won’t need.

So you missed out on the sun’s glow and the first hints of a warm breeze, supporting the kites lazily bobbing overhead.  I whispered grateful thanks to those who first gave me their love of this place, handing it over like a baton or a flame that I will run with or shelter now that they have gone.  A dog walked past wearing a jumper and those of us that had stayed sat waiting for the spring and the sakura.