Season One Recap: What Five Guests Taught Me About Waiting

When I planned this season, I picked guests who were interesting and kind. I did not plan a theme. Somewhere around episode three I noticed that everyone I'd spoken to was, in one way or another, talking about waiting. Here's the recap, with the lines that have stayed in my head.

The five voices, briefly

Odile Fenwick, the cheesemaker (episode 1). She waits eleven months for a wheel to be ready and has learned to trust a notebook more than a mood. Her best line was about the cellar: it doesn't care how you feel.

Teodor Basile, room tone (episode 2). He records the quiet that sits behind everything else, so that edits can vanish. Since our chat I can't stop hearing the hum of every room I enter. Thanks for that, Teodor.

Hattie Maguire, the trail crew lead (episode 3). Her work is only visible when it fails. I walked past a drainage ditch last week and thanked it out loud.

Anselm Pruitt, bookseller (episode 4). Take it back if you didn't love it. A whole philosophy of trust, hanging on a card above a till.

Bryn Calloway, dry stone waller (episode 5). Touch each stone once. Walls outlive their builders and nobody minds.

The pattern I didn't plan

All five do slow work that other people consume quickly. A cheese gets eaten in an evening. A path gets walked in an hour. A book, a wall, an edited minute of audio: each took far longer to make than it takes to use. None of them complained about that gap. Several of them seemed to find it restful.

What you wrote in

I asked for questions and got more than I could answer, so here are three themes.

• Many of you wanted to know how guests are chosen. Honest answer: I ask people whose work I keep thinking about, and then I ask them again.

• A few of you asked whether there would be shorter episodes. I'm trying one in the new season.

• One message, from a listener who repairs clocks, simply said "episode three made me braver". I'm keeping that one.

Next season

Season two starts in the new year. I won't name guests yet, because I've learned that naming them early jinxes the booking. I can say there's a glassblower on my list, and someone who tunes church bells, and a person who delivers post to a very remote island.

Thank you for spending your Tuesdays with me. If you have a favourite moment from the season, send it along and it might make the next recap.