Am I? Are you? Really? I’ve been guilty of speed reading recipes. Something goes in the oven and I realize I’ve skimmed over some essential ingredient. Or reading an email from a lover and missing the whole context of the note until I reread, after spending countless hours on some fixated emotional firestorm that ate up all the space in my body. Reminded again this morning after reading a piece from this too prolific blog poster (can you tell I’m envious, even jealous), Jen Pastiloff. In the past week she reposted a devastatingly intense piece from a woman who struggles with an addiction to Kloponin, which moved her to repost an earlier piece detailing  Jen’s work with clients at a rehab facility and an ectopic pregnancy that she went through. In short order she received responses with grave concern about HER addiction, that SHE was a client in rehab and congratulations on her pregnancy without looking up that an ectopic pregnancy is never viable or even what that is.

Anymore emails I’ve sent are often never read; if I want someone to respond to me I need to text them. As much as I love to read, I find myself trying to read the New York Times in sound bites, along with three separate books on my nightstand. I guess what this is a message to myself. To slow down and pay attention.

Years ago I was at a retreat in Hawaii and I seriously tore a ligament in my hip attempting  to execute a split. (I think I was trying to show off). My friends took me to an acupuncturist and as I was lying on his table macerating with needles in me, his phone rang and he took an appointment. I noticed he didn’t write it down. Questioning him about this, he responded “if I can’t keep it my head, I know I’m doing too much”. Anymore I notice no one attempting to keep anything in their head. I don’t need to remember phone numbers anymore. I can schedule as many appointments, meetings, errands from different streams of my life and have a sound remind me, that is if I’ve even remembered to enter it. Or post it to the correct calendar.
If you read this, are you willing to help me with this? Call my attention to checking my phone if I’m talking with you. If my attention wavers with you, nail me. It’s a short life. I don’t want to miss any part of it.