Paying Attention

I'm reading a book about paying attention. I read blogs about paying attention. I quit Facebook and Twitter so I would pay better attention. I write three pages every morning to pay attention. I'm typing this in order to pay attention.

Yet I can't seem to pay attention to much of anything right now.

There's the news onslaught, but that's pretty easy to dodge if I choose. I don't have to type nytimes.com, syracuse.com, or npr.org into my browser and they don't appear by magic. I don't listen to the radio and when I watch television it's usually something that I've cast to the screen. The news isn't robbing me of my attention.

My anxieties are. Things are all new. I'm home with my family (wonderful), working remotely (not wonderful), and worried about growing pandemic (really terrible). It's a lot of adjustment and so far I'm not doing great with it.

How about you?

It was nice outside today. I took my book and dog to the backyard. Groucho Marx wisely said that outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. The dog, a terrible reader, chose to roll in the grass. I tried to read my book. It's a tough book and I'm in a tough spot, so it didn't go well. The dog probably could have done better. Maybe I should have rolled in the grass.

My mother says she's in the same boat (mostly about reading, not rolling in the grass). Stuck at home she's trying to read Richard Russo, an author whose books are easy to fall into, but she just can't seem to stay with it.

I suppose we should give ourselves time. It's still early days and though today's sky was blue it still felt as if it was falling.

It's good to remember that while today (Thursday) and Tuesday were terrible days for concentration and attention, Monday and Wednesday were better. Jon Anderson sings I get up, I get down and John Denver says some days are diamonds and some days are stone. Who am I to argue?

I'm sitting in bed typing this. The cat is purring. I'm tired. Once I've posted this I'll have no need to pay attention. I can let go and drift gently to sleep. Tomorrow will be another day, another chance to try my best to pay attention. That's about all I can ask of myself right now.

Recommended Reading

If I had a good way to search old blog posts, I'd know when I last recommended Leo Babauta's Zen Habits, but since I don't, I'll just recommend it again. So there.

This morning I read his "Coming Back To Powerful Habits" twice. I often read his essays twice, not because they're tough reads — he's a clear writer — but because I get something from those second readings.

It helps that I agree with most of what he says. The "Coming Back" post is about returning, a theme I've hammered at often of late. I also like that he's forgiving, encouraging, and not didactic. He admits his failings and doesn't trumpet his successes. He's humble and generous, two qualities I admire in others and try to encourage in myself. Reading his posts helps with that.

We are likely to be cooped up some for a few weeks needing good things to read. Skip Twitter and Facebook for heaven's sake. Read Babauta and this bgfay guy instead. You won't regret it.

Read To Be

This is one of those posts that feels like it says something, but I'm posting it wondering if it says anything at all. Good thing about a blog is that I can just let you figure that out.

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The other day I wrote about how I hadn't finished any books in January until I sat my butt down and finished one. That, as usual, led to me wanting to read more. I had Ryan Holiday's Stillness Is The Key and read the first page, standing at the kitchen counter waiting to take my daughter to school. I was hooked. Three days later, I finished the final pages.

Some books I read just for fun, to hear a story, but usually I dig more out of a book than just entertainment. Mostly, I read to learn. That sounds holier than thou, but I dig learning. When people ask what time in my life I'd go back to do again, I say college because I loved when my only job was to learn new things.

Hang on. That's kind of my job now except that rather than grades, how well I learn determines whether or not my organization survives.

In college, a woman working to finish an essay due the next day wailed, it's too much pressure! I asked what the hell she was talking about. We had had the assignment for weeks. Hers was mostly drafted. Mine was done. The worst that could happen is she'd get a lousy grade. Our only job was to write an essay according to the assignment, revise the hell out of it, and (here's the part that's easy to forget) learn something in the process to use the next time around. Not much pressure there, but her wailing helped me see my situation more clearly. In a flash of insight, I understood what I was doing, what I was there to do, and how to do it.

Do I understand my current situation in my new job? Ryan Holiday's book brings me a step closer. He's a good teacher too and didn't wail on any of the 260 pages of his book. So far as I can tell, my job is to be open to learning and accept that I don't know everything I want to know. I've been at this job all of 262 days, not long enough to know much of anything. I have a lot of struggle ahead.

Struggle? That doesn't sound good.

But it is good. On almost every one of the 260 pages of Holiday's book I found something that helped and nudged me. That's nothing compared to help and nudges I receive on the job most every day, each of which helps me do and be more. It's a matter of time, acceptance, openness, and diligence. I've got this.

I have to remind myself of such things because anxiety, that Godzilla-sized monster, lurks within me ready to awaken, trample all my buildings, and breathe fire over the landscape of everything I am. I have to remind myself to breathe, to keep going, and to believe.

Reading helps me remember that I'm searching and trying to find balance just like most everyone else. I'll always want to know more but am well-advised to be content with who I am in this moment. Striving and contentment balance one another. Holiday calls this stillness. I'm just as happy calling it being.

I can think of no better way to be than taking on new challenges, learning new things, and not wailing when anxiety attacks. I need all the teachers I can find. So I'll keep reading, finishing one book and seeing another waiting on the desk, one that I can't wait to begin. It's like beginning another day, sun coming up, sky open to infinity, and me rising from slumber to see what there is to read and learn before the sun goes down.

End Of The Year

The finished book sits on the shelf beside me and will soon go back to the library. Stag's Leap a collection of Sharon Olds' sad poetry, the story of her marriage's dissolution. Why do I read such things? Why does anyone? I know the answer, but saying it doesn't do the question justice, so I raise one shoulder slightly and incline my head toward it. A half shrug. Whatever.

My reading slowed this last month and a half just as my writing did. I was distracted. A bit lost. As I get from time to time. No real damage done. Just a slow down. Fewer books read. Still, I think about what happened and why. Have I been depressed? Here comes that half shrug again. Here comes whatever.

I read a guy's thoughts that January 1 doesn't begin anything. The year begins when he decides it.

My wife, before we married, categorically denied the new day until she had slept and awakened to it. I liked that. Not the sun, but her movement set the calendar. She declared it as though there could be no denying.

Me, I stick to January 1 and to midnight. Stag's Leap is the last book I'll finish this year. I've created a new blank list for the coming year. I've copied anniversaries, birthdays, and notes to a new planner and retired 2019's planner. I like the notion of beginnings even as I'm stuck on the endings inherent in the turning to a new year. Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?

The finished book will soon return to the library where it may sit untouched for years. The new planner, mostly blank, sits on the desk, open to possibility. The old planner, its time done, the world having moved on, stands on a shelf in my office. And I type, feeling gears tumble as springs uncoil, and hands turn. I see the sun descending, the afternoon light begin to fade. I can't help but feel the year drawing to a close.

That and the steady rhythm of my heart doing whatever hearts do at a pace and according to a rhythm none of us know quite how to control.