Alice Walker’s Garden of Attention
I love driving on Friday nights in Atlanta’s springtime. Aside from the warm, flowery scents and breezes to enjoy, there are literary and arts events galore to attend. Emory University recently held an evening celebration to honor the poet/activist Alice Walker having shown the wisdom, sense of heritage and mission to preserve ‘unique materials of permanent […]
Eating Disorders and Attention
Weight carries symbolic language; wait; tight; loose; overweight; heavy and flat: it is almost a dialect full of symbols of distraction and of personal and social interpretation. If you pay attention to the weight, what are you not paying attention to? What is weighing you down? Why, your feelings. “Metaphors transform unconscious patterns that hold […]
Training for Distraction
‘Take that pile upstairs while you’re on your way up.‘ ‘Don’t leave the room empty-handed.’ These two admonishments were companions in my childhood home. ‘Take this while you’re going that way.’ I guess I can keep remembering the many ways I was trained in distraction. My favorite is ‘Don’t think about yourself – think about […]
Thriving with Attention
Twenty minutes of sunshine and fresh air (with a little pollen) and three dogs are walked. They aren’t winded even though it’s been weeks since I’ve walked them. My boys thrive with attention. They don’t ask for much more than a daily routine of caring attention. The more attention they receive the more content […]
Do Friends tell Friends ‘You Have ADHD’?
Yesterday I ran in to two ‘old’ friends at lunch. We talked about our children, what’s happened to each of us in the past few years and what we’re doing now. At one point one woman casually commented that ‘she had ADD’ as part of the conversation flow. When it got to my turn to […]