RACHEL'S COLUMNS

These articles appeared in Rachel's column every Friday in the A3 section of The Age

Athena's dicky knee an omen for our Jana?
13th August 2004

The keys to Jana Pittman's chances of competing in the Olympic 400m hurdles are rest, ice, meditation and waiting.  I'm sure she's a champ at waiting – I am not – because we spend most of our lives waiting and frankly, I'm over it!  I wait at the traffic lights, I wait at the supermarket, I wait at the bank, I wait at the doctors, I wait for the waiter to explain the menu and take my order.  And finally, I wait for the recommended daily dose of Vitamin B to do its work and give me the stamina to continue waiting.

As you're reading this there are people everywhere waiting for deliveries, waiting for someone to come and measure something or move something or fix something that got smashed to bits by someone who got tired of waiting.  Whenever I'm waiting I almost give myself a nose-bleed brooding about all the things I could be doing if I wasn't waiting; like learning the Tango or reorganising my spice-rack.  Or, inventing a really useful device like the triangular stick that divides my shopping from the next persons at the supermarket checkout.  Genius doesn't happen when you're waiting – the guy who invented the wheel was not waiting for the RACV to arrive.  It was fear that motivated his desire to invent something that could help him outrun an advancing lion or mammoth because even back then, you could be waiting forever for the police to arrive.

I don't have the time here to argue whether waiting is good or bad, I'm sure for Jana Pittman right now it's necessary she sit it out for a few days, although to our amazement she dumped her crutches within what seemed just a few hours after her surgery.  So without being too high-faluting, I present here the case for those who didn't wait and leave you to be the judge.

Lady Godiva – The woman had her clothes off quicker than you can say  "G-string" and rode naked through the streets of Coventry to stop her hubby imposing heavy taxes on the townspeople.  Sure, she could have waited and tried talking to him but he probably would have just told her what she wanted to hear and kept watching the footy.

Romeo and Juliet – Yes, they could have waited instead of drinking the poison but who's to say they wouldn't have been bored witless with each other by the time they were eighteen!  I'd also like to point out that if Messrs. Capulet and Montague had signed up for an anger management weekend long before the kids started snogging things might have gone differently too.  Having said that I believe that there would have been less room for error if Romeo and Juliet had communicated a little more accurately, say, with a simple uh-huh or nod of the head.

Amelia Earhart didn't hang around waiting for the glass ceiling to be shattered.  Without missing a beat or accumulating the required frequent-flyer points, she grabbed a thermos of hot soup and a pair of tweezers and flew across the Atlantic.

Adam and Eve got tired of waiting for the caterers and the getting of wisdom.  Regrettably this got them tossed out of the Garden of Eden without getting their bond back.  Had these two not been locked into a destructive co-dependent relationship we may all still be living in a rent-free utopia – existing only on air and getting in touch with the spirit.  Ok so call me a pagan but I'd choose knowledge and bottled spirits over a fig leaf and a long lease anytime.

The epic tales of ancient Greece are chockfull of one-eyed monsters and many-headed serpents.  These myths praise the warrior Goddess Athena's strength and prowess in overcoming tremendous obstacles.  The Goddess, who was the guardian of Athens, where currently Jana Pittman waits patiently, was almost always represented with a spear in her right hand, a shield in her left and a dickey knee.  Jana is no doubt channeling Athena and her inspiring example of strength and success instead of banging her head against a wall, which is what I'd, be doing!  (I read recently that banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour, but please don't try this at home.)