Today, you get to be a voyeur…

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Do you think that one of the reasons you are “always” good”—if this is indeed true—is because you are very much always—or usually, anyway—in the moment?

This is something I see and value about you—the intensity and focus of your presence in the present.

It seems… effortless. And for me, it is something that requires a great deal of effort. It is easier here, because almost every moment demands my focused presence. I must pay full attention to… crossing the street. Buying bread. Getting on the bus and off the bus. Negotiating with the taxi driver. Fending off the hustler.

Looking at the ruin next to the pampered, newly renovated villa…

Usually, though, my default state—I am here—doing, whatever, walking, cooking—and I am also in three places in the past and planning three things in the future—and that’s just reality, I’m also imagining an assortment of things that never will be—and oh, what if that happened and what if, when she gave her cell phone to that woman on the bus, that woman called not her husband but her drug dealer, and then he had this cell number in his phone, and one day, he calls it, and…

And then I burn supper, walk into a post, elicit a “Why don’t you ever listen to me?” from my kids.

I am fully present, sometimes, when I read poetry. That’s why I like your poets so much. During fabulous sex, but that sometimes requires conscious will…

When I hit “flow” when writing.

Birth, breastfeeding—these were also ultimate events of pure presence..

Rambling now.

But this was a thought I wanted to get down on paper (I will type it later, send it to you) before I blew it out with cigar smoke…

(Sheesha, sometimes, gets me there too. It slows down my head and I can choose to think only one thought –or not to think at all for the space of an inhale-exhale.)

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the nights here are very noisy

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(it’s still the weekend where I am…)

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“Jane”