To Attend

On attention and verses

“Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” ~ Mary Oliver

Photo by Ashwini Chaudhary(Monty) on Unsplash

At the end of December, I watched the new moon curve into a crescent moon and for days, I collected words to describe the shape as it thickened and rounded itself. An eyelash, a jawbone, a scythe, a grin, a cup, a cradle.

The holidays seem like hardly the time to pay attention to anything, but I filled my journal with lists of everything I noticed, everything I wanted to remember. The Bible says Mary pondered in the midst of the chaos and I was right there with her, holding it all close.

A blue jay flashing like jagged sky pieces through bare tree branches. My son’s head on my husband’s shoulder, falling asleep during the singing of Silent Night at church on Christmas Eve. The teakettle steam gushing from the spout like it’s waving to me. The careful brushstrokes on my husband’s painting hanging in the kitchen. My lungs, filled with winter, after a brief bursting walk around the block in 10 degree weather. A bowl of turkey soup at my best friend’s table. Belonging. Belonging.

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We’ve been watching the TV show Dickinson (finally), so I’ve been practicing turning some of my observations into poems modeled on her style and rhythm. They’re not good, but it’s fun to turn my attention into words in the immediacy of the moment, my pace matching the tempo as I walk home.

I wave at empty windows. The dead crows glare me down. When I escape the righteous crowd, I take a hollow crown.

And another:

A bird whistled as lovers do
when I turned to go.
It cried and shrieked most pitifully
as I left it alone.

I did not turn, I did not look,
I kept on walking straight.
Oh, how I wish for feathers, flight,
a branch to bear my weight.

I thought about the word attention today, which has the shorter word “attend” snuck in there. “Pay attention”, like “be present,” is a directive that’s wound into our social fabric now, the object of so many memes on social media, and it feels like such an order, one more thing I must do, like a daily yoga routine and cleaning my toilets. But who can do it all the time? If my mind wanders, if I am distracted by my own thoughts, if I am not fully focused on my spouse or my work or my child, have I failed at something I didn’t even know I was being tested on? I wonder and I start to panic a little. But when I think of how “attend” is nestled inside the phrase like a bird, I feel my fists unclench.

To attend to something or someone is to look after them. To care for them.

I have a habit of acting out of fear, afraid of being punished by the world or God for making the wrong choices, for not being “good enough.” Sometimes I am afraid that if I don’t pay attention well, I will lose everything I love or I will have missed out on something. I still think half the reason I journal is because I’m saving everything to remember when it’s all gone.

But if “to attend” is to look after someone, then if I am truly paying attention, attending to whatever has caught my eye, following my curiosity, letting a moment soak into my brain, I am not fulfilling an obligation, but looking after myself. I am looking after the person, the creature, that I have fixed my attention on. Attending can be a way to say to others, “You are beloved. You matter to me. I see you.” Attending can be a way to say to myself, “Your life has value. This world has value. See this bird print in the snow? See the way your son pages through a book? Feel this bread dough in your hands? You are here and worthy and beloved. You are part of this whole.”

It will always be imperfect and inconsistent. I’m working on accepting that. A line from Walt Whitman (one that I always hear in Robin Williams’ voice, thank you Dead Poets Society) has reverberated through my head this week:
“What good amid these, O me? O life?
Answer.
That you are here— That life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”

I attend to the crows. To the sky. To the tea in my cup, the snow coating the pinecones, the candy wrapper on the sidewalk, the toys on the floor. What more can I do? What better verse can I create?