The Waiting

For FedEx

Back in around 1993 or 1994, it was said that North Korea had nuclear weapons.

I was very upset by this, and afraid. I grew up in the 1980’s Reagan years when nuclear war was a very real threat, and the leadership of North Korea did not seem to me to have the soundest of judgement.

So as I was going on about my fear that North Korea would drop a nuclear bomb on us, my old friend Joseph, then Joe, said, “And how would they get it here? Federal Express?”

Fast forward to 2023, present day Philadelphia, West Philly to be exact. The land where, it appears, the mail in the Victorian house split into apartments where I live is no longer getting put into our carefully labeled mailboxes. Rather, it is being spilled in an unruly heap on the sofa on the porch.

Or rather it was. For a few days when I was so sick that I didn’t leave the apartment to do anything, much less check the mail, the mail was being so distributed. Regular putting mail in mailboxes resumed, so it wasn’t until yesterday when I figured out that this had been happening.

Meanwhile, two checks from my clients were missing. One I was sure had been sent, as I am in regular contact with the sender. The other I’m still running down. But point being I was missing about half my income for the month, and my one client kindly agreed to help resolve this situation by sending me a replacement check (the other one is gone forever, now I know why) via Federal Express.

He made sure it was sent by overnight delivery, on Friday, so that it would arrive on Saturday. Unfortunately, we did not have a tracking number for reasons that need not detain us.

Stay with me here because it gets complicated.

I live in the rear apartment of a lovely old Victorian house, so my physical address is on one street, which is where the front of the house faces, while my actual place of residence is on another street, with the door on the side of the house. Add to that, in West Philly, packages are routinely stolen off front porches. Just last week the copy of Leon Uris’ Exodus that my father sent me, one of my childhood favorite books, was stolen. Yes, someone in West Philly stole an Amazon package and ended up with a copy of Exodus. Do you think they will read it? I read it at about 12, maybe 13 I think, 14 at the latest. Explains a lot.

Given that people will steal books off porches, I certainly did not want to give them the opportunity to steal a check, and the chances of a FedEx driver finding my apartment are zero to none, so I resolved to camp out on the porch or thereabouts until the check came yesterday.

It was cold. I hate the cold. I bundled up.

I paced back and forth on the sidewalk in front of the apartment, having pleasant phone calls with a few friends, almost tripling my Move goal on the Fitness app that the iPhone mysteriously installed a few months ago. I obey that thing even though I didn’t voluntarily install it. I almost always meet or exceed my Move goal. I feel like it’s angry, or I’ve disappointed it or offended it somehow if I don’t. But I digress…

A police car pulled up to the corner and parked there. For a long time. Now police cars are not unusual here but I did start to wonder what was going on, so I asked.

A very nice policewoman told me that a prayer walk would be coming by soon, and she was there to block the street. What a relief. No criminal activity. I told her I was waiting for FedEx.

A FedEx truck came up my street. I chased it, alarming the friend I was talking to. I did not almost get myself killed chasing a FedEx truck, I assure you, but I did speak to the driver.

No, my address would not be on his route. Another truck. Okay. There’s always another truck coming around that corner.

USPS trucks went by. Amazon prime vans went by. All manner of things by which an object may be delivered, but not the one thing that would deliver the one object of which I am very much in need. The other things that very much resembled the thing that I need driving by made the longing for the FedEx truck worse. How come other people are getting their packages, that they probably don’t even care about that much, maybe just their updated supply of coffee filters and handcrafted tuna fish, while the package I need is nowhere to be seen?

I was getting sad. I was getting cold. I was getting worried about getting sick.

So I made a series of signs, leading from the front door where the FedEx driver would think I was, to my apartment.

It was a bit like a breadcrumb trail in a fairy tale, with a series of signs saying, “Delivery for April Smith this way →! I AM HERE!”

I went inside. I put away the laundry. I tried to reassure the cat, who was concerned about this odd behavior. She doesn’t like it when I do anything unusual.

I drank Diet Coke. A lot of it. Perhaps too much, given that I was on edge as it was.

I repeatedly checked the front porch, just in case the driver had appeared and somehow missed or ignored the signs.

I chatted with a neighbor and figured out how the original check likely met its untimely demise.

I realized I was running out food because my plan for the day was to go to the grocery store, not to wait for FedEx, so I ate an Atkins bar that I had left over from covering the NJ Bar Association conference in May. As it turns out, Atkins bars do expire. One bite in, Atkins bar in the trash.

Still no package.

I texted friends. I made plans for my career. I was too nervous to concentrate on any work and the day was rapidly becoming a waste but I was waiting for this check…

Twilight was setting in, early as it does in these late fall days, and I began to despair.

I knew the check wasn’t going to come. I had an intuition that it wouldn’t come that day. I knew it all along.

I checked my phone again.

The night before, the night the package was sent, I had received a mysterious text from FedEx saying that a package is on its way and scheduled for delivery on Monday before noon. But I had thought that can’t be this package because a) I didn’t think the sender had given FedEx my phone number b) I had been assured that the package was coming overnight, meaning would be delivered on Saturday.

Now a calmer, more rational person, one who was not so involved in the situation, might have realized that the text from FedEx did indeed refer to the package for which I was so eagerly waiting. Yes, I had been told it would come overnight, I wanted it to come overnight, but it was going to show up in its own good time on Monday.

I could have done something else with my Saturday.

But! Being way too involved in the situation, I did not see clearly. I drove myself crazy waiting for a check that was not going to come until Monday. I saw the end of my world, the crashing down of my financial security, imminent starvation and freezing to death, all in the lack of this check on Saturday, when in fact the thing had clearly communicated that it coming on Monday.

(Okay, it wasn’t quite that bad, but I do have a flair for the dramatic.)

In Zen, we strive to see clearly. We sit zazen (meditation), study the Precepts, take jukai vows, study with a teacher, all in order to see more clearly. Certainly we feel, but we try to be with those feelings, not make up narratives about them. If you’re angry, just be the anger, don’t make up stories about the person who made you angry. If you’re sad, be the sad, don’t try to repress it (doesn’t work), but don’t make it worse by making up stories about it. Just let it be.

Eventually, as I texted with two friends who always seem to see me through these fits of fear, we decided that the only logical explanation was that while the package might have been mailed overnight, with all the good intentions of the sender, due to Veterans’ Day and any number of other possible factors, it would come on Monday.

So I relaxed, had Chinese food with one of my best friends, and watched Star Wars Rebels until I went to bed.

Now given the situation with packages and the importance of this one, I do not regret my day of watching and waiting. If it had in fact come and I had been out, it might have been stolen or disappeared. I took a reasonable, if inconvenient, precaution.

What I do regret is the level of anxiety, even agony, that went into the day. If I had read the message from FedEx, taken it on face value as the obvious explanation for when the package would come, I could have taken the precaution of staying in just in case, but perhaps had a more productive and enjoyable Saturday.

Now it is Sunday, and I am in that day between when I was disappointed that the package didn’t come and when I believe the package will come. I was raised Christian, and I feel the spirit of Holy Week in this time. It is like the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, when we have faith that the check will come, I mean that Christ will rise from the dead, but we haven’t had the Easter egg hunt yet.

I feel some anxiety on this Sunday in between, but my faith is strong.

FedEx sent me a message reassuring me that the package is on its way. Aren’t they sweet?

The moral of the story, and I am talking to myself here as much as to you, is that while we often have to wait through uncertain and scary times, it usually turns out okay.

To quote Tom Petty, “The waiting is the hardest part.”