Do We Ever Really Pay Attention?

I did so many things today. I did walk. I did make an appointment (tomorrow at 4:30- so quickly!), I did go to see my mother (it was fine), I did buy birthday presents.
I did, I did, I did. I even went to the mall and was astounded at what is to be found there, the way the mall has a roar about it, the vast amount of perfectly awful, tacky shit being sold which I suppose people want to buy.

I am still half-crazed. It's such a strange mixture, this feeling of completely bare wires and wanting to lie down and pass out.

Fucking adrenaline when you don't need it. When there is no bear to run from, no car to lift to save your child, no mastodon with its mighty tusks in your face.

Anyway, la-di-dah. I doubt I'll die from it.

Meanwhile, I watched a video on Youtube today and I doubt that anyone but those of us crazy old hippies and natural childbirth believers-in would be that interested in it, but here it is, just in case.
I think, quite frankly, it's worth watching just to see the way Stephen and Ina May give each other their complete attention when the other is talking. Stephen used to talk about that a lot, back in the olden days. About how important it is to really give people your full attention. Watching this, I realize that he and Ina May still believe that and practice it. And to me, it is beautiful to see. How often do most of us really give our full attention whether it's with our lovers, our friends, our spouses, our partners, our children? What would happen if we tried to practice this laying-on-of-attention? To actually listen and take-in when someone else is speaking instead of trying to figure out what it is that we, we, WE are going to say next when that person speaking takes a breath and it's our turn? Or even worse (and I am SO guilty of this) to give half-attention to someone speaking, keeping the rest of it for some other activity we are doing at the same time.

I can only imagine that this is one of Ina May's most powerful tools as a midwife. To pay attention.
That simple.
That difficult.
That rare.

Well. It's a thought.

Here it is.