Episode Overview

Episode Title: Waiting for the Call I Am by Wyatt Townley
Host: Maggie Smith
Podcast: The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily
Air Date: January 14, 2026

This episode centers on the experience of waiting—those tense, liminal spaces before the unknown becomes known—explored through the lens of both everyday life and poetry. Host Maggie Smith reflects on the discomfort and universality of waiting, connecting personal insights and Buddhist philosophy before presenting Wyatt Townley’s poem “Waiting for the Call I Am,” which artfully captures this all-too-human sensation.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Concept of Bardo and Liminality in Life

[00:46] – [02:17]

• Maggie opens by recalling a conversation with Ann Tashi Slater about her book on living in an impermanent world.
• She introduces bardo, a Tibetan Buddhist concept meaning the interval between death and rebirth, which also broadly applies to any of life’s "in-between" periods.
• Quote (Maggie Smith, 01:05):
  “The concept of bardo in Tibetan Buddhism refers to the interval between death and rebirth and the intermediate state between birth and death. But it also refers more generally to liminal periods in life, in-between times, the times when we’re neither here nor there.”

2. The Suffering of Resistance to Change

[02:17] – [02:41]

• Maggie reflects on how all life is marked by change, and suffering often comes from resisting this fact, longing for permanence.
• She relates bardo to personal transitions: “marriage, divorce, and other big life transitions.”

3. Waiting as Modern Bardo

[02:41] – [03:46]

• Maggie reframes waiting as a modern bardo:
  “Thinking about it now, I realize how much waiting is a kind of bardo: waiting on test results from a doctor, waiting for a jury to deliberate and make a decision... waiting for a call after an accident or a disaster, to know your loved ones are safe.”
• She describes the emotional seesaw between hope and fear, and how the metaphors for waiting (“treading water,” “pins and needles,” “tenterhooks”) reflect extreme discomfort.
• Quote (Maggie Smith, 03:41):
  “Waiting is hard on the body because it’s hard on the mind.”

4. Introduction to Wyatt Townley’s Poem

[03:46] – [04:11]

• Maggie frames the forthcoming poem as an embodiment of “the torturous waiting for news, good or bad, in that purgatory when life as the speaker knows it hinges on a phone call.”

5. “Waiting for the Call I Am” by Wyatt Townley

[04:11] – [05:38]

• Maggie reads the poem, which uses potent imagery and universality:
  • The speaker negates personal association with familiar waiting scenarios—awaiting love, test results, a job, a missing child—transcending individual experience to invoke collective humanity.
  • There's a striking image of the phone's ring radiating outward to everything and everyone nearby, contrasting with the isolated turmoil of the heart “in the cupboard, breaking the dishes.”
• Notable Quote (Wyatt Townley, read by Maggie Smith, 04:47):
  “We are all beside ourselves as the phone is beside ourselves.”
• Memorable Line (Wyatt Townley, 05:20):
  “But the heart is in the cupboard, breaking the dishes.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Liminal Waiting (Maggie Smith, 03:08):
  “The waiting is a kind of purgatory, a middle ground—in that liminal in-between space we alternate between hope and fear. Some despair might creep in, too.”
• On the Universal Experience (Wyatt Townley, 04:56):
  “I am the beloved and you are the beloved. We are all beside ourselves as the phone is beside ourselves.”

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:46 – 01:20 | Introduction to bardo and life’s transitions
• 02:41 – 03:46 | Meditation on waiting as a form of bardo
• 03:46 – 04:11 | Prepoem reflection: Why waiting matters
• 04:11 – 05:38 | Reading of “Waiting for the Call I Am” by Wyatt Townley
• 05:38 – end | Poetry Foundation credits and outro (content ends at 05:38)

Tone and Takeaways

Maggie Smith brings contemplative warmth and empathy, framing even uncomfortable truths within poetry’s gentle acceptance. The episode uses simple yet profound language, balancing personal and universal reflections. It’s a reminder that waiting—in every form—is a shared, almost sacred part of being human.

Summary for the Uninitiated

If you haven’t listened, this episode weaves Buddhist philosophy, everyday anxiety, and poetic imagery together to validate the anguish and hope of waiting. The poem, by rejecting specific stories, assures listeners that while our circumstances may differ, the ache of anticipation is something we all carry—bound together by that ringing phone, suspended in our own tender bardos.