paying attention

so i have been overbrimming with things to express these past few days. but i have purposefully been holding them back. this is rather like trying to contain one hundred unruly baby swans in a puddle. it is also perhaps misguided given that a purported purpose of this blog is to encourage me to write regularly. why then, would i suppress my writing? 1 - i wanted to observe the rise and fall of my emotions and thoughts without interpretation or presentation. 2 - out of a sense of privacy. little trouble and i have managed to lose each other. this probably does not come as a surprise given comments about my preference for crying in corners and such things. but i haven't fully expressed it until now. it has been very hard and sad. and yet. we continue....

when i haven't been actively containing my thoughts, i have been channeling them into gmail status messages. i realize that they have become a bit much. when we were at this fashion open house this saturday, i fell into a conversation with the milliner (heart that word!). she was an american woman who makes fabulous and outrageous hats. imagine everything from baby dinosaurs to feathers, fans to giant leaves. i'm not sure why, but during conversation something about my manner of speaking convinced her i was a fellow artist or a creative sort. and she asked me as much. i said yes, i was involved in the creative arts and my current medium was gmail chat status messages. i said its a very narrow genre, but often neglected. you can do so much with so little if you really put your mind to it. i don't think she found this quite as amusing as i did. and it made me realize i really need to find a wider space in which to exercise my creative muscles. although my friends thought it was pretty funny. we were drinking mulled wine even though it was before brunch and before noon (11:45). when a friend pointed that out, i said that i was deep in a phase of being gentle with myself, so i was allowed to drink before noon. (not that i have otherwise done so!)

over brunch that day we contemplated that idea - being gentle with yourself. and questioned what that might mean for each of us. i was a little taken aback because i thought it would be enough just to say that and get away with drinking mulled wine and eating gingercake before brunch. at some point when i was explaining what "being gentle to mattie" meant to me, i mentioned that i've found what makes me most happy is making others happy. a friend who was there commented that, although she doesn't know me well and of course this is a good quality, it may be something to pay closer attention to. she had learned about herself that she is a giver and can give a great deal with little in return, except on occasion when she really needs it. and she questioned whether the give, give, give dynamic is healthy. while of course we all navigate these subtle emotional terrains distinctly, i have found myself watching her point rise and fall amid the waves of my mind a few times since. there may be a point at which one cannot or should not give any further. (and even as i write this i can recall having reached that point. although this memory is not in the context of a romantic relationship.) what is challenging about my current situation is that my impulse is to continue to give.

although there are many ways to give. my gift to my office building has been to single-handedly become the 15th floor anti-smoking swat team. i mentioned that we moved offices recently. the comrades on the 29th floor were content to adhere to building regulations and refrain from smoking in the hallway by the lifts. (even though there is an ashtray there above the rubbish bin, smoking is not permitted except in the hallways by the stairwell.) the 15th floor is another story. when we first moved there was a constant lingering smell of cigarette smoke in the hallway. it was distinctly unpleasant. my first tactic was stalking. i would try to catch the culprits in the act and then have our office manager call the building's management office to complain and send someone to investigate. but that tactic proved largely ineffectual. so i decided to deploy the direct confrontation approach. whenever i came out of our office to discover men smoking in the hallway while waiting for the lift (it's always men and always the same few), i would tell them they needed to cease and desist (a.k.a. move to the hallway by the stairwall and close the door). last night i took on four slightly drunk comrades who did not move immediately after i informed them that it was forbidden to smoke in the hallway and they needed to go to the stairwell. so i told them that their behaviour was uncivilized. and threatened to call the building management. that did the trick. today, when i was stepping out for lunch, the smokers saw me coming and hightailed it to the hallway by the stairwell before i even had a chance to say anything. which made me smile.

i have received some other unexpected gifts in the last day. a neighbour returned a baking dish he had borrowed filled with freshly-made brownies. and a friend sent me this rushdie quote: "Live on, survive, for the earth gives forth wonders. It may swallow your heart, but the wonders keep on coming. You stand before them bareheaded, shriven. What is expected of you is attention." i really think that concept it is a gift - what is expected of you is attention. perhaps that's what my withholding of thoughts is about. more than denying writing, i have simply been paying attention. may i always create the space to do so.

and now, the gift of poetry on a tuesday:

astonishment

why after all this one and not the rest?
why this specific self, not in a nest,
but a house? sewn up not in scales, but skin?
not topped off by a leaf, but a face?
why on earth now, on tuesday of all days,
and why on earth, pinned down by this star's pin?
in spite of years of my not being here?
in spite of seas of all these dates and fates,
these cells, celestials, coelenterates?
what is it really that made me appear
neither an inch nor half a globe too far,
neither a minute nor aeons too early?
what made me fill myself with me so squarely?
and why am i staring now into the dark
and uttering this unending monologue
just like the growling thing we call a dog?

- wislawa szymborska