23 June 20XX+1
My Dear Lucilius:
The only thing more impatience inducing than waiting is more waiting.
Rising today was not different than rising the day before. The scouting party was still gone. Breakfast was a repeat of the day before. We were politely reminded to stay indoors to reduce the potential of being observed.
For most of us – scrabbling to make a living for the last year under unexpected circumstances – a sudden forced confined inaction made for a restlessness that I have not experienced in years.
There were card games, but these began to escalate in volume and were called to a halt. Someone started an impromptu open-hand class and before long a group was in one section grabbing and locking. Someone else found the mats for the gym and soon enough flipping was added to the regimen.
The constant thought at the back of my mind – at the back of many, I suspect – was the looming unknown of what was to come. It clung to the mind no matter if reading or eating or watching others train. One desired the return of the scouting party for knowledge that all were safe, if no other reason; the fact that with their return other wheels would begin to turn served comfort, I suspect, to no-one.
As part of the day’s rushing languid tide of time, I found myself in a conversation with Blazer Man.
He was, like me, of an older vintage, a teacher by trade (history, of all things). He had worked in the system until, like many of us of a certain age, he simply could not do it anymore. He hung on long enough for his pension, then he and his wife relocated here after years of coming for vacation.
His wife, unexpectedly, passed within a year of the move and he suddenly found himself at a loose end. Years of planning for a decade or two of enjoyment were gone. Left on his own, he found himself becoming involved in every local historical and civic organization he could to fill the void and pass the time. Which, it seems, ended up also being in the volunteer militia.
It was a pleasant conversation, one that I have not had the opportunity to really engage in for a very long time. After the backgrounds for both of us were introduced and rambled through, we found ourselves slipping away into the sorts of things that historians (amateur and professional) talk about: Was the fall of Roman Republic foreordained, or could it have been saved? If Philip the Second of Macedonia had lived, could he have succeeded like his son Alexander did and if so, would he have left a more stable kingdom?
You have no idea (well, actually you do, Lucilius) how such a conversation can lift the spirits. There is nothing to make the time pass and helping to turn the mind away from a troubling present like a conversation that engages the passions and mind. It was, in this time and place, a drink of clear water to a very parched throat.
It did not make the worry go away or the scouting party return any more quickly. It did, however, ease a mind (my own) that needed something else do dwell on except the iron truth of the present.
Your Obedient Servant, Seneca
Talk about waiting, try sitting in a deer blind and not moving. At least when going after the wily ruffed grouse you are moving but slowly. Good thing Seneca was distracted since I suspect hunting Man is an entirely different proposition.
ReplyDeleteNyon12, this is undoubtedly why I would be terrible at hunting. I am terribly fidgety.
DeleteNone of them are even out in the field yet. I suspect that will be even worse.
It's funny, but we're so used to modern television and movie scenarios that it seems like battle preparations and action are relatively instantaneous. In reading Bernard Cornwell's historical fiction, however, I realized how long it actually takes to get an army assembled and prepared, not to mention moved and positioned. So this is pretty realistic, to me. Good writing.
ReplyDeleteLeigh, people wiser than I have pointed to the fact that we have created a society in which we have convinced everyone that everything can be resolved in 45 minutes or less on television or around 3 hours in movies. Everything up to the popularization of the railroad, car, and communication technology moved at the speed of...people. Or maybe some horses. We have come to rely on this form of communication as well, which bodes ill for any disruptions in it.
DeleteAnd thanks for your kind words. You are sort of my "canary in the coal mine" of how this is going, since I suspect this sort of thing may not be on your regular reading list.
I remember card games even a magnetic chess game or three awaiting action.
ReplyDeleteMostly I was keeping horseplay and loaded weapons out of play.
Accidental discharge was ah,bad.
Michael
Michael, one often reads of pre-battle soldiers trying to keep their mind off the upcoming battle.
DeleteThe avoiding weapons sounds a completely wise philosophy.
I have no doubt that if I were ever out on my own again, I would be hopelessly lost in history. For some reason, I can hold intense focus looking back while looking forwards is a lot more hit or miss.
ReplyDeleteEd, I find the past far more engaging than the present.
Delete