do I like change? have you seen my hair?

“Don’t be afraid to suffer—take your heaviness / and give it back to the earth’s own weight; / the mountains are heavy, the oceans are heavy.” ∆ Rainer Maria Rilke, from The Poetry of Rilke; “Sonnets to Orpheus”

In English, attention is something you pay. In Spanish, it is something you lend, and in German, something you gift. You “do” attention in Italian and French. The quest for attention is an invitation to care.

“I woke up each day feeling like I was dying so I quit drinking and smoking. Now I go to bed each night wishing I had.”

How long you will be gone?

She asked me what I was growing.
I said peppers and a lemon tree.
“I’d like to grow raspberries myself someday.” She said.
I looked up and said I liked that.
She smiled and told me that I had a nice garden before squeezing through the window back to the party.