I'm imagining a spectrum of attention that ranges from a willingness to notice, to a willingness to tolerate, to a willingness to stay near or with, to a willingness to care a little, all the way out to to a willingness to compassionately explore and connect. Maybe even love. Regardless of whether we like what we're finding when we look further than we've looked already, a deepening of attention is always possible and not for the feint of heart.
I'm not talking social media attention, validation. I'm talking the being with kind of attention, abiding.
One morning, I was finishing with the chicken stock I had started cooking the night before. I was straining the vegetables and bones from the broth, then picking pieces of meat from the strained material to give my dogs and cat. The amount of meat I was scoring from what had seemed a pretty bare carcass the night before when I put it in the crock pot... It was ridiculous! The more closely I looked, the more I found. I would never be able to get it all.
Motivated by wanting the animals to have as much of this rare treat as possible, I paid better and better attention to what I was doing. I put on reading glasses to see smaller bits of meat, separating them more carefully from the vegetables. All this added more and more treasure to the their bowls, more excitement and anticipation as the soggy bits kept dropping, and then, out of nowhere in the middle of all the fun, heartbreak: the meat's gonna run out and we're all gonna die.
I will never have enough of my sister who died recently, no matter how much attention we paid to each other. Regardless of how much benefit came of the time we were so fortunate to have, she is gone now. I will never have enough of the daughters and parents and other family and friends who are still here. Of course it is sad to realize this. I don't want to think about it. I want more chicken.
To keep cutting through the thin veils between me and what's in front of me, whether I'm accumulating something or letting that something go seems crucial. The chicken will run out. To the extent that I can be with that concept is the extent to which I can be with the experience of it when it matters.