Things I can't photograph...

The Sound of Anticipation…

Waiting Rooms

Musing on the theme of saving things, automatically brings up the concept of anticipation. Eating certain fruits at a certain time of the year – not having access to everything all of the time. A novel thought for today where we want and even demand everything immediately.

On a recent trip by train to Zürich I met a sociologist friend who has an office which has the specific task; ‘to slow down time’. Over coffee in the restaurant wagon, a wonderful Swiss invention with leather Cassina designer chairs, motivational quotations on the skirting board and offering quite a good cup of coffee too, we spoke about how important it is to have to wait for things… I thought back to the times I would sit in the little chapel of the convent school in Ireland, listening to the crows in the trees of the adjoining fairy-fort – the sound of anticipation.

Who remembers what it was like waiting for a letter? Waiting for the summer holidays and waiting for Christmas. Waiting until you would be old enough to do all the things you wanted to do…  swap your Donegal tweed uniform for a silk summer dress and flimsy leather sandals – maybe go to Paris! Only to realize that the Donegal tweed was ‘the real thing’ after all… and Connemara in the springtime beats Paris at any time of the year – by far! Jewels of dew on the hedge-grow.

We spoke about how the introduction of a perfectly scheduled train time-table led to the deconstruction of waiting rooms and how the wonderfully stylish Bahnhof Buffet in St. Gallen had to make way for cheap boutiques and fashionable fast-food shops. ‘Seems like a crime to me,’ he concluded. I can only agree…

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