Goldfish
My attention multiplies because, like a goldfish that grows to fit its pond, it has the space.
Liz Sarb
It is so difficult to pay attention to children. When I’m out in public with both of mine, I’m always briefly forgetting that one exists, usually right around the time the nonexistent child is injuring herself or running into the street. I realize this is not a ringing endorsement of my parenting abilities. I’m not an “eyes in the back of my head” mom. I’m a “go into a different room and do whatever you want, because I’ll be too absorbed in my own task to remember to check on you” mom. My attention is splintered.
I pretend that motherhood did the splintering, but in reality I’ve always been like this. I sometimes walk out into traffic myself—my husband has saved me many times by physically restraining me as I blindly step off the curb. My most-repeated phrase is, [frantically] “Have you seen my airpods??” This is quickly followed by an interior monologue: “God, you’re such a mess. Just put them back in the same spot each time!!” The monologue takes over and I exit the house with the sought-after airpods (they were in my purse the whole time) but without my keys. Thoughts seem to inhabit my head so fully that there is no room for checklists or peripheral vision.
To be fair, one time I did locate said airpods, after 30 minutes of searching and self-flagellation, locked inside of a toy truck with a toy key by a three-year-old. I will admit to having the attention span of a goldfish, but my kids might have something to do with it after all.
Upon reflection, I’ve identified two distinct types of parental attention: the workhorse kind required to keep children alive, and the spiritual kind required to truly see them. I struggle with both. “Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer,” wrote Simone Weil. (Look at me, remembering stuff from college!) Most days, the only prayers I say are, “Deliver us, Lord, from this bedtime routine” or “She who uses her inside voice at the grocery store will inherit a donut.” Can you tell I haven’t been to church in a while?
I recently paged through my pandemic journal. Every night, I would write goals for the next day; it was so cute. Over time, the goal-oriented entries devolved until many read like this one from September 15, 2020: “Breathe. Unclench.” (Written with breath held and every muscle clenched.) Or this, on October 8, 2020: “Pay attention.” I’m not surprised that my thoughts were scattered; everyone lost their minds a little bit. I do worry that the affliction has persisted.
In these more normal days, I rarely write in my journal, but when I do, I record funny things my girls did and scrawl notes about how much I love them. I can feel myself trying to pin them down on paper after the fact. It’s the same as spending an hour of blessed free time scrolling through their baby photos: I’m best at paying attention to my children when they’re not in my direct care.
Is this intrinsic to my personality? I wonder. Our beloved nanny sends me beautiful photos of the girls, photos that somehow capture their true essence as they run through a sprinkler or eat a cake pop. She sits with them on the floor and does a million puzzles without checking her phone. Maybe the exchange of money helps her focus. Or maybe, as my monologue kicks in to say, she pays better attention than I do.
Most weeks, in between the school drop-offs and the grocery shopping and the paying work projects, I carve out a few hours for creative work. When I paint, my monologue is replaced by my grandma’s voice: “Watch how the line of that shape meets that shadow. Look how the light falls on the surface. Do you see how that color changes?” She was an art teacher and would narrate our work together as I was learning. She taught me how to really see, and really seeing is exhilarating and exhausting. I’ll sit down to capture a landscape, and when I look up, it’s three hours later and I’m spent. But my thoughts have been pulled out from my brain, placed into my hands, and transferred onto the page—and I feel like I can finally breathe.
It’s important to note that while I’m making art, I’m not refereeing sibling squabbles or packing a diaper bag or trying to get out the door on time. My attention multiplies because, like a goldfish that grows to fit its pond, it has the space. I applaud artist-mothers who can work with their kids in the studio, because I sure can’t. I need quiet in order to see, quiet that will never be available when there are children in the room. Instead, my ears fill with their requests and my mind fills with thoughts of work, dinner, house, clean, dirty, don’t fall, don’t eat that, don’t blink or you’ll miss it. I’m missing it.
So some nights after they’re tucked in, I open my sketchbook. I scroll through my phone until I find a closeup of one of their sweet faces. Then I draw, and get drawn into their features and their gestures and the way their hair falls just so. For a little while, I truly see them. It feels just like a prayer.
