The difference between anticipation and impatience is what makes the one thrilling, the other unnerving. I suppose there are many things to be said against both anticipation and impatience – you know, how it is better just to “live in the moment”, “qué serà serà” and how dreadful it is to be constantly restless and yearning. But impatience in my opinion has anticipation in the dust!

I mention this seemingly profitless reflection because I have lately struggled with what was initially an annoying exercise in impatience only. Since last October when this all started I have been anxious about wrapping up the matter – which has been delayed until now. The pending conclusion was estimated from the outset. So the delay was not unforeseen. Shamefully since last October I have been irascible. Yet by the cunning of explanation I have diverted the unsettling anxiety to peachy expectation.

The primary tool which enables this distinction is the abandonment of time.  I think, dear Reader, you’ll agree with me that setting aside the muted differences between anticipation and impatience, there remains the rail of connection between them: time. Curiously the examination of time is like looking at anything else; namely, the further removed one is, the greater the blurriness. That is the condition which inspires impatience, the anxiousness to approach.  Anticipation, on the other hand, already has the matter in site. The view or identity of the matter is no longer subject to question (such as inspires impatience). Instead control is  imposed on the former liberty. Time management is now on the horizon. The question is no longer, If? but rather When? The transition is critical to soften one’s temperament, a preposition of purpose. Psychologically the improvement from impatience to anticipation is the abandonment of measure, the ability to say on awakening, “Another day!” instead of asking, “What day is this?”

Throughout this lexical turmoil – that is, in the past 48 hours – I have been overwhelmed by the current state of affairs. The promise of spring is at hand. The conviction to matters of the heart has overtaken what was formerly indiscretion. Accordingly the passage upstream along the distant winding river is now certain and plain. It is a euphoria! And what makes it all the more marvellous is that nothing deliberate has transpired; the future is as uncertain today as yesterday. It is a reminder that what counts is what naturally unfolds. And all in good time.  Making a fuss about the future is a wasteful enterprise. We eventually get there!

Meanwhile I am relishing (though admittedly from my interior prospect) the frosty white fields and the manifestly freezing river water which has arisen from beneath its former frozen film. Yesterday, in a moment of spirited gusto, I ventured up the ramp from the subterranean garage on my tricycle to reacquaint its tyres with the outside blacktop. It was a short venture – requiring the application of some electricity to the device to overcome the upper boundary of the heated cement. Nonetheless I metaphorically overcame an internal boundary as well. It was my welcome to a new era. Perhaps this and similar trifling accommodations are part of the changing seasons, the figurative  jumps from one to the other.