I have let my attention go so many times and told myself I would simply collect it again whenever the moment felt more ready for my full presence,
I have let it go and not noticed the moment it slipped away because the slipping is never dramatic and never announces itself before it leaves,
I have let my attention go and filled the space it left with smaller and easier things that asked nothing of me and gave me just enough to feel like I was still showing up,
Do I actually know what I have missed on the days I was present but nowhere else and does the not-knowing make the missing worse or just a quieter noise,
I have let my attention go for so long that I am no longer always sure which version of the moment I am actually inside when I am standing in it already...
I have built a very comfortable relationship with the interruption and called that relationship flexibility when the more honest word for it is drift,
I have built habits of half-attention so slowly and so casually that I did not feel them forming and now they feel more like my natural state than the focus I keep promising to return to,
I have built whole hours out of the fragments of a dozen different things and arrived at the end of the day with the particular exhaustion of never having actually been anywhere completely,
When I say I was working today what is the honest percentage of that time where the deepest and most necessary part of me was genuinely present and not just for the sake of passing,
I have built the interruption into the structure of my days and then wondered at the end of each one why the most important work never quite made it all the way through what’s needed...
I have watched the signal come and then left it waiting while I finished something smaller that felt more urgent and more manageable in this particular moment,
I have watched the signal come and picked up my phone instead and told myself I would be back in a minute and returned to find that the real quality of what was there had changed in my absence,
I have watched the signal come and not trusted it enough to stop everything else and turn toward the way it needed me to turn and give it the full weight of my undivided self,
How many times has the thing I was actually being asked to make quietly because I was too occupied with other things to open the door in time,
I have watched the signal come and gone back to the noise and lived for years inside the low hum but not quite paying the kind of attention that changes what is possible...
I have confused being busy with being present and let the busyness stand in for the kind of attention that actually produces the thing I say I am here to make,
I have confused the motion of the day with the depth I told myself that the motion was enough evidence that I was doing the real work and not just circling all over it,
I have confused the open tab and the draft and the plan and the research and the next step with the actual sitting down and giving everything that most needs from me,
Is the life I am living right now a life of genuine attention or a life of organized avoidance wearing the costume of productivity and what real forward motion looks like,
I have confused being busy with being present for so many seasons that the connections has become one of the most quietly important things I am still trying to learn how to feel...
Watchwords:
The slipping never announces itself before leaving,
Built whole hours out of a dozen half things,
The signal came and I picked up my phone,
The door I didn't open in time for it,
Organized avoidance wearing the costume of productivity...
Here is Tikatarot, who dares you to answer the question, “Who am I?”..
As and will always be reminding you to dream: