I’m not sure how often rock and roll legends, toddlers at Christmastime, and I see completely eye to eye, but in this case, we do.
As Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers sang:
“The Waiting is the Hardest Part”
Furthering its rock and roll lineage, Petty said he drew inspiration for his song from Janis Joplin, who famously remarked:
“I love being onstage and everything else is just waiting.”
I was reminded of this sentiment for many reasons, particularly while structuring my month-long January course Move Into Magic.
While the first week focuses on clearing, the second is all about the power—and torture—of waiting.
This month, as I prepare for a potential move, I’ve been practicing what’s taught in Week One | Clearing:
- Decluttering your space and mind to invite fresh possibilities.
- Releasing what no longer serves you.
- Creating room for the magic you desire.
Unfortunately, all that newly empty space can feel nerve-wracking, like an awkward pause in a conversation with a stranger.
We’ve all felt that almost overwhelming desire to fill the silence with something, no matter how mindless or repetitive.
Alas, I believe the temptation is even greater when we work at transforming our mindset.
To truly Move Into Magic—again course info HERE—we need to find a way to embrace those moments of waiting rather than avoid them at all costs.
Speaking of waiting…
Many years ago, when we were living in a Chinatown loft, my chocolate lab Belle befriended two Chow Chows that were owned by a couple who I later learned owned a prominent art gallery.
We became friends and they soon shared with me the saga of an underground film that took 20 years to be released.
Shot in 1980-1981, Downtown 81 was abandoned because of financial and technical problems, including most of the audio being lost.
Two decades later, in 2000, the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festivalwhere Variety called it “an extraordinary real-life snapshot of hip, arty, clubland Manhattan in the post-punk era.”
It’s not just the extraordinary hibernation period of the cinematic material that intrigues me, though.
I’m much more inspired by the stories around the picture’s star, the tragic genius neoimpressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Since this was pre-streaming, the gallery owners offered me a VHS of Downtown ‘81, which I watched immediately.
The synchronistic timing could not have been more apt.
The movie begins with Basquiat locked out of his apartment by his landlord and for the length of the film, carrying around one of his canvases as he scrambles to sell it.
At the time, although living in a rent-stabilized apartment, I was also preparing for my first gallery show on the Lower East Side, spending days shuttling between my framer and the gallery, often with large canvases draped over my shoulder.
As proof, here’s Belle admiring one at the show.
I Am Waiting is a fantastic (and very long) poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Here’s the first stanza:
I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
I find all of this highly relatable.
Whether you’re Janis Joplin or a 7 year-old gazing at presents under the Christmas tree, I think we are all indeed “perpetually awaiting a rebirth of wonder.”
Here’s why I think that week two is the most challenging of the Move Into Magic Course.
It’s the week where we practice the following concepts around Embracing The Wait:
- Resisting the urge to control outcomes.
- Trusting the timing of your journey.
- Staying present and let things unfold naturally.
Since this is about doing less and allowing more, this should theoretically be the easiest week by far.
Alas, for most people (especially me), this is rarely the case.
Illustrating this concept, there was once a super-athletic, hyper-flexible yogiwho was an absolute joy to have in my classes, that is, until the last fifteen minutes.
Although they could truly defy gravity in various poses, they were incapable of lying still for Savasana or final rest for more than 30 seconds.
They were up to any physical challenge, any extreme contortion or show of strength, but the technique of simply being still utterly eluded them.
Like a whirling dervish, they simply couldn’t wait to be moving again.
Back to Basquiat—
Downtown ‘81 ends with a homeless woman in an alley telling Basquiat that if he kisses her, she will turn into a beautiful princess.
Although initially reluctant, he kisses her, and sure enough, the bag lady magically transforms into Debbie Harry, the beautiful rock and roll legend from Blondie.
What’s even more mind-blowing though, is that to help Basquiat out—who was pretty much homeless during the filming—in real life Debbie Harry actually bought the canvas he’d carried around for the entire film for $200.
Today, Art News HERE reveals that Basquiat’s works from that period sell in the $30-50 million dollar range.
Debbie Harry apparently still owns the painting, and I honestly doubt she’ll ever sell it.
Having gained 15 million percent in cash value since she purchased it, there’s nothing she could possibly be waiting for.
To really move into magic, especially after clearing away the clutter, I truly believe we need to resist the urge to control outcomes.
We need to learn to trust the timing of our journeys.
Often those journeys follow predictable paths, but sometimes, like Downtown ‘81, it may take decades for them to unfold.
The opening of another poem, The Wait by Pulitzer Prize-winner Galway Kinnell helpfully encourages us in this:
Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven’t they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
In the same way, I Am Waiting ends with the poet
perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
It’s unlikely that that moment’s ever going to happen, and yet it allows him in its final line to remain “awaiting perpetually and forever, a renaissance of wonder.”
Embracing waiting in that way feels less of a test of patience than a stretching of curiosity and delight, a true pathway to move into magic.
I invite you to explore that in this month’s meditation HERE and in January’s course offering as well.
Let’s learn to “trust the hours” together, knowing that “a rebirth of wonder” lies ahead—if we can simply wait for it.
Namaste for Now,
