Duck and Penguin

I think I know what it is.

talix18:

I’m in a “Sit still and WAIT” period. Either I’m suppressing whatever I might have to say or I’m deliberately not looking too closely at each passing day - the unexamined time will pass more quickly? When in reality the opposite is true - the busier I am, the more engaged, the faster time will fly. How and to what shall I turn my attention when the only thing it wants to stick to says “wait”?

In The Snow Leopard there is a passage where the author comes to a high point in the trail at a low point in the expedition. Delays due to bad weather and the complicated sociopolitics of the lowland Nepalis have delayed them to the point where they fear the monsoonal snows will block their passage across the Himalaya. At this point, on a muddy, drizzly track, something compels the author to stop at a clearing, wait, and look north. After a considerable wait a gap in the clouds comes and reveals the whole crest of the Dhaulagiri range, 20,000 feet high, glowing like diamonds in the low sun. If he’d not heeded the call to wait, he would have been back in the trees and missed the whole thing.

So, um, look north. Metaphorically, of course.