Worth the Wait

Today I had a lot of stuff to do. Not important stuff, not unimportant stuff, just “life” stuff. Errands to run that make adults, adults. I took my camera with me with the intention of walking around afterward to see what there was to see.

“Stuff” always takes a lot longer to do than you think it will. By the time I was done, the sun was well on it’s way to setting. I drove into the Metroparks anyway, just to see if anything was left to see.

As I was walking around, dejected about the dying light, frustrated at there being nothing to see, and wondering why I even bothered to lug my backpack with me when I didn’t even get my camera out, it happened. “It” being what happens when you allow yourself to be removed from whatever it is you are thinking about and open to whatever is around you.

I saw an old guy standing on the ledge looking down to the river. He looks at me and says “It’s about to let go.” In busier times, I would have nodded and been on my way. Curiously, I walk over to him and inquire what was about to let go. I look down to the river 20 feet below us and see huge ice dam that has formed. The old guy says he has been here all day, waiting for it to go. I watched for a while as large pieces of ice would come down the river and slam into the dam. Ice would shift, crack, get pulled under, and slide on top. It was mesmerizing. After about 20 minutes the dam broke. Ice slabs the size of a house began moving down the river, maybe a hundred of them. Grinding so loudly that you couldn’t help think of the Titantic scraping along the iceberg. Breaking into pieces that weighed a couple hundred pounds as the 1000 pound slab hit the rapids. I have never seen anything like that and it really was incredible. The sheer power of what was happening was unbelievable.

Once it broke the old guy just smiled. “Worth the wait” he said as he turned to walk away. He’s right. It was worth the wait. There are a lot of things that would be worth the wait, if you would just wait for them. Watching this thing unfold in front of me was one of those things.

I need to get back to taking the time to slow down and look. Just for a few hours a week maybe. So much to see out there. So much that is just past the face of that clock you keep staring at so that you aren’t late for the next appointment.

“Worth the wait” he said.......