I'm Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown.

A few months ago, I spoke to Anne Tashi Slater,

author of the book Traveling in Bardo,

The Art of Living in an Impermanent World.

The concept of Bardo in Tibetan Buddhism

refers to the interval between death and rebirth

and the intermediate state between birth and death

but it also refers more generally

to liminal periods in life

in between times

the times when we're neither here nor there.

Anne and I talked about Bardo in relation to marriage, divorce, and other big life transitions.

We talked about how change in life is the only constant, and how much suffering can result from resisting change and grasping for something we cannot have, permanence.

Thinking about it now, I realize how much waiting is a kind of bardo, waiting on test results from a doctor, waiting for a jury to deliberate and make a decision, waiting for a ruling by a judge, waiting for a call after an accident or a disaster to know your loved ones are safe.

The waiting is a kind of purgatory, a middle ground. In that liminal in-between space, we alternate between hope and fear. Some despair might creep in too. Everything will be okay.

We tell ourselves one minute. The worst has happened. We tell ourselves the next. Even the metaphors for waiting are deeply uncomfortable,

treading water, being on pins and needles, or on tenter hooks.

Waiting is hard on the body because it's hard on the mind.

Today's poem captures the torturous waiting for news, good or bad,

in that purgatory when life as the speaker knows it hinges on a phone call.

This is a poem by Wyatt Townley.

Waiting for the call, I am not the girl after the party, waiting for boy wonder.

...