Paying Attention

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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.

Ordinary Coffee

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I wrote this a few months ago, back when we were all still going to work. I miss my morning coffee downstairs with Ed who takes good care of the seniors at our community center and me.

At the office, I go downstairs for coffee. There's always a pot on. Folks there prepping for seniors who come to breakfast and stay for lunch. They invite me for a daily cup. I pour and wish them a good day. They wish me a great one.

It’s ordinary coffee. Maxwell House or Folgers. Scooped from a can into a white paper filter. Hot water runs through the machine, extracting some flavor, some bitterness.

Dad kept coffee on all day. A pot in the morning. One after dinner. When anyone came to visit. When the guys were over to work a funeral. When he went out late to a house, hospital, or nursing home to retrieve the dead and help the living find their way again.

Just ordinary coffee. Maxwell House or Folgers. Scooped from a can into a white paper filter. Hot water run through the machine, extracting some flavor, some bitterness, some darkness.

Dad always offered a cup. Always accepted one. He’d sit, drink coffee, talk, and listen. In his kitchen. In theirs.

At the office, I always accept the offered coffee poured into my cup over the stain of the day before's coffee. I stand, sip that bitter coffee, talk, and listen.

Dad's unfinished cup has gone cold in the kitchen of memory. Death having called him out one last time.

Ordinary coffee. Maxwell House or Folgers. Scooped from a can into a white paper filter. Hot water run through the machine, extracting some flavor, some bitterness, some darkness, some light.

I carry that coffee up to my office and sit alone sipping again from a cup daily refilled.

We'll Do It Live!

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Pardon me a moment while I preach to the choir.

An NPR station in Washington State will no longer carry the orange maggot's press conferences live from the White House. Instead, they will monitor and report only that which is factual and responsible in them. Basically, they're choosing not broadcast the man-child's campaign rallies which, more than usual, pose an imminent threat to us all.

I get that some people are going to disagree with this and many of them will go bat-shit crazy while forgetting that:

  1. This is one NPR station making an editorial choice as news organizations should.
  2. Fox doesn't often carry Democratic campaign rallies or news conferences live.
  3. The briefings are available elsewhere.
  4. The First Amendment doesn't require live coverage of Presidential briefings.

The station announced its decision on Twitter and read the tweet. I have long ago deleted my account but forgot two things:

  1. Never read the replies to any tweet.
  2. Visiting Twitter is swimming in a cesspool.

As I do often these days, I washed my hands thoroughly, this time mostly to wash my hands of Twitter, the hoi-polloi, and the maggot. I probably needed a shower.

Andrew Cuomo's briefings have been a comfort for me, but I didn't watch him live today. I read about it after the face and was fully informed.

Perhaps the maggot followers can't read more than a tweet. That or they're just out of their minds and have been for a long time.

This concludes my preaching to the choir. We now rejoin our regularly scheduled live briefing already in progress.

This post's title comes from one of television's most beautiful moments.