Attention is closeness.
Attention is surrender to the ordinary.
Attention is what happens when God becomes elemental.
Attention is intimacy with mortality.
Attention is freedom.
Attention accepts but does not make excuses for.
Attention is love.
Blog
have I written this haiku before?
sweet cream treats melting
dreams of young summers smiling
so simple it hurts
PS. Have I written this haiku before? I think I have.
keeping them alive
it takes me two hours
to water all of our plants
keeping them alive
collapse is okay
I had this whole plan to write a long, well thought-out blog post today about emotional labor. I even started early in the morning, writing a paragraph before feeding the chickens or watering the seedlings. But now I’m collapsing into bed, a day full of writing for clients, teaching young piano students, strategizing about upcoming live shows, and home care tasks. I’m going to do a Tara Brach meditation and then sweet, sweet sleep will overtake me. Tomorrow is (hopefully, and, based on previous experience, always) a new day.
the end and the beginning
yellow burlap stretched over a wooden frame
turquoise earrings arranged piece by piece
too many nails in the wall
a work of art rather than a domestic task
the end and the beginning of an era
A word on entropy
Ok, I’m just gonna say it: fuck entropy.
is this what motherhood will be?
Dusk at the campground. Mother and daughter. Mother calls Daughter’s name once, twice, three times, four times. Daughter finally answers, “I’m here!” from behind us. Woodsmoke is thick in the air. In the city, this would be concerning. Here, it simply calls attention to the impact of concentrated numbers of humans on small plots of land. Mother turns around in her hammock, interrupting her reading for the thousandth time, to reason with her daughter. “Stay where I can see you,” she pleads, “please, stay where I can see you.” Daughter rides up and down the paved hill, over and over again traveling far out of Mother’s line of sight. Mother cranes her neck. I wonder if she is able to read even a single sentence of her book. Is this what motherhood will be?
getting lost on backroads
Top down, blind man navigating, high 70s, ice cream dripping onto overalls, sunburnt lips, skin touching accidentally on the stick shift, laughing at nothing, no radio, the man who never married, the woman who is newly engaged, the old and the young, getting lost on backroads in upstate New York.
the displacement of anger
We are running through a living room, on the north side of the house, unsure if this is a game or a real life-or-death situation. My sister has my bead container. It’s this plastic box with tiny compartments for each type of bead, and all of my treasures are inside it. THIS BOX CONTAINS EVERYTHING I VALUE IN THIS WORLD, AND I WAS ABOUT TO MAKE THE MOST EPIC NECKLACE EVER, AND THIS TINY 6-YEAR OLD IMP IS TRYING TO STEAL IT FOR HERSELF. The fucking nerve.
Anger billows up out of my armpits, my shoulders, my knees. I sprint faster, finally gaining on my younger sister, who, in a flash of inspiration, runs up the stairs.
NO. The hot pressure sticks to my ribs, threatening to detonate. A word blooms in my stomach, burrows up through my esophagus, gets under my tongue, digs deep into the crevices of my jaw. I’ve said this word so many times before, in thousands of ways. Sometimes it comes out soft, gentle, imploring, but other times it comes out fighting, harsh, terrifying.
I see what is happening in slow motion. That’s not even the right way to describe it. It’s not slow motion. It’s focus. Detached focus. I see what is happening with a focus so clear, it’s as if I am a monk meditating in a Himalayan temple. I know I am about to scream. I know that it is going to be so loud that it will hurt my throat to do it. I know my sister will not be happy about it. I know I will do it anyway.
“MAYAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” I bellow.
Everything stops. She stops running, I stand breathing heavily. The anger dissipates. She comes down the stairs, full of genuine innocence and hurt. She is deflated, I is deflated, the moment is forever deflated.
Now, the memory is blurry here. I’m not sure what happened to the bead container. Did she give it back to me? Did we string necklaces together? All I remember is that she was sad.
In that moment, I decided that I didn’t want to experience her sadness that way. I didn’t want it to be my fault. The blame was too much. So, I made a pact with myself. I would never scream at my sister again. No matter how angry I got, I wouldn’t let my anger escape from my body like that.
Ever.
I kept that pact for years, almost perfectly, not just with my sister, but with everyone else in my life.
Recently, I have been blaming young Siena. She was too weak for the world. She didn’t stand up for herself enough. She didn’t say no when she didn’t want something. She didn’t say, “give me that,” when she DID want something. She let people in. She exposed us to danger. She didn’t protect us. She was a coward, a phony, a pussy. My trauma was her fault. The abuse I experienced was her fault.
But, remembering this story made me realize something: the anger didn’t disappear. The “NO” never went away. It was simply displaced. I was always pushing back.
I wrote long journal entries about anger. I played angsty piano octaves on the piano as I performed Mozart, Chopin, and Debussy. I acted out angry characters in theater productions. I sang. I mimicked the faces of actors as I watched movies. I danced. I made myself heard. I made myself safe. I rejected the world in my own ways. My sensitivity gave me wings, won competitions, got me into small competitive circles. I was strong and took care of myself masterfully. I was a hero, a human, a warrior.
In fact, I’m now realizing that I have been counteracting the dominant figures in my life the WHOLE TIME. Maybe I wasn’t screaming at them directly, but I was sure as hell screaming in other ways.
I have always said every single thing I needed to say. I said these things loud enough for people to hear. I was never weak. I was never defeated. I knew exactly how to take care of myself. I was Queen of Myself. I was a fearless leader, a wise nurture, a great intelligence.
There was not a lack, but rather a redirection of strength.
This was always the plan. I was meant to be right here, right now, right as I am. I have never been anything different. I was never feeble, although for a long time I thought I was. I am simply learning where to place my anger.
a springtime view out the window
The silver pole peeks out from my neighbor’s roof, still, in the late-spring sunlight. Midnight blue wrapped thrice around it, deflated and confused. Looking at the stars, I feel sad, as if I will suffocate under their weight. Below, the red and white stripes float lazily in the breeze, mirroring the newly-arrived leaves on the tree opposite the porch. The confident stripes feel oppressive, indifferent, terrifyingly unfeeling. I can only see the very top of the flag, and the very bottom, but just the outline of it gives me the heebie jeebies.
To our neighbor, though, does the flag feel different? He is a Vietnam war vet, a Black man, a retired Kodak man, a king of the streets (his words, not mine), a loyal husband to his wife since 1976. When he bought the house, he erected the flag pole himself, carefully placed the United States’ flag on it, let it wave in the wind for all to see. The proud silver rod is the figurehead at the prow of his porch.
According to the Royal Museums Greenwich, a ship’s figurehead embodies “the spirit of the vessel, offering the crew protection from harsh seas and safeguarding their homeward journey.” Protection. Safeguarding. Spirit. Home. These words form such a stark contrast to the words that brew in my chest: Scared. Unsafe. Chaotic. Defeated.
Is it our age that separates our very different reactions to the flag? Is it our communities? Is it the time we were born? What is it that makes him want to raise that flag proudly and call it home? What is it that makes me want to wrap it up tightly, put it in a box, and never see it again?
Siena Rose 