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-11:22

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Episode 37 -- The Culmination of Interest, Presence and Attention

Hal Walker

Oct 22, 2022

Hi! I’m glad you’re here. Click the play button above to hear me read the story. Thank you so much for your support. I hope you’ll share this post with one friend. Thank you! Hal

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As I was writing in bed this morning, the sound of a bird outside my window broke through the clouds of my morning meanderings. I heard the nearby call and it made me quiet. I paused my writing just to listen. The listening woke me up into the moment and I experienced a clear sense that I'm not alone. Then I kept writing.

I have a confession to make. I'm a poor listener. I'm good at a lot of things, but listening is not one of them. Hand me a frisbee to throw, a harmonica to play or a paragraph to edit and I'll show you how it's done. But ask me to listen to you tell a story for seven minutes and I'll humbly admit that I'm just not that good at it. There's probably some sort of diagnosis for my condition. I don't know. But whatever it is, I've known this about myself for a long time. I'm glad that today I get more chances to practice. I'd love to hear what you do in order to be a better listener.

Of all the skills in life, I believe listening to be one of the most important -- especially as a writer, especially as a musician, especially as a human being. Listening is the thing that connects us. It's the culmination of interest, presence and attention. It requires stillness in the mind, openness in the heart and patience in the body. I don't mean to be too hard on myself, but these are all things that I could use more of. My difficulty with listening may very well be the source of the underlying loneliness that I've carried around for many years. I'm just too damn preoccupied with my own thoughts.

Bed-based and living with chronic illness, I'm grateful for the way Zoom keeps me connected to the world. Many times a week, I have the opportunity to practice listening. In 12 step meetings, I frequently get to hear people share honestly and vulnerably their story of recovery. Just as frequently, I zone out. I'm either planning my next big project, thinking about what I'm gonna say or thinking about what I just said. Too often, my brain just feels like mush. Yesterday, once again I found myself daydreaming and I tried something new. As a woman was sharing her story, I began to recap everything that she said. I stayed on mute as I spoke under my breath, "Ah...so you're visiting your family in Grand Rapids ... I see. In your visit, you're doing a lot of moving from house to house... mm hm. And thanks to your sobriety, you're able to go with the flow of traveling...I get it." This method worked for about three minutes until I was completly exhausted. At that point, I took a break and I let my brain go on a well-deserved tangent. I really hope that I'm not hopeless in my endeavor to become a better listener.

For all my years of going to church on Sunday, the sermon has always been the greatest challenge. It goes all the way back to being a kid with my dad in the pulpit. He'd start preaching and I'd tune out. In church, I generally do well with the hymns, the silence and the ceremony, but when it comes to the sermon, I need help. Heck, I even have a hard time listening to the "Time for All Ages." At the beginning of the message, I'll say to myself, "OK Hal. You're gonna do it this time. You're gonna listen to this whole thing. Put your hands in your lap, focus your eyes on the speaker... now breathe... pay attention... relax… here we go." Then somewhere at the end of the first paragraph, the whole congregation breaks out laughing and I realize that I'm off in some other world having a conversation with myself. "Um...Could we please go back? I missed that whole section." I whisper to the person next to me, "What's so funny?" I'm a daydreamer.

When I'm at a poetry reading, the words go in one ear and then they come right out the other. Considering the metaphorical nature of poetry, it may not be the best setting to judge my capacity for digesting words, but I have a sense that I'm missing so much. I'm better at grasping the melody of the voice and the vibe in the room than the actual words that are coming out of the poet’s mouth. The words are like a jumble hitting my ears faster than my brain can make sense of it all. When it comes to listening, I have the attention span of a 15 year old Tik-Toker. It would help if I could hear the poetry in 15 second loops that play over and over again until I swipe to the next poem.

Even everyday conversations can be challenging for me. I can certainly be pleasant, agreeable and smile a lot, but the listening is a whole different story. It may not look like it on the outside, but inside, I'm often trying to figure out how much longer I need to stick around until I can make a graceful exit. Living with chronic illness, conversations usually fill me with a strong need to go lie down somewhere. Of course, it's always best when I can be honest. I've been known to ask for a rewind when I get distracted and I've also been known to lie down right there on the spot when I get exhausted.

I'm not telling you all this cause I'm proud of it. I'd rather be offering listening tips after having solved the listening problem. But I gotta tell the truth, the wiring in my brain needs work. I could blame it on the myalgic ensephalo-fuckin'-myelitis or I could blame it on the constant ringing in my ears. I could also blame it on all the marijuana I smoked back in the 90's. But finding the blame doesn't really help solve the problem. What I need is a miracle.

Lately, I've experienced a couple miracles. This morning, it was the call of the bird that woke me into the moment. Last week, it was an interview I witnessed with Irish Poet David Whyte. Everything out of this guy's mouth sounded like a truth that I should of known a long time ago. With his stunning bass voice, he was so utterly profound that I found myself hanging on his every word. Last week, I was convinced I'd found a poet who quiets my churching brain and delights my easily distracted ears. He made me long to sink into the listening.

The next afternoon, I let my whole being sink into one of his essays. At 70 autumn degrees, it was a gorgeous day in Ohio. There was a warm breeze and the sun was peaking through a mostly cloudy sky. The trees were exploding with fall colors. I parked my scooter down by the river and found a spot in the grass to lay my body down. In my headphones, I turned on David Whyte's reading of a 400 word essay called "Alone" and I closed my eyes. Suddenly, the world stopped and all my focus came to the flicker of sound between my ears. I was listening with the hungry delight of a child.

“Alone is a word that rings with a strange finality, especially when contained in that haunting aggregate ‘left all alone.’… The first step in spending time alone is to admit how afraid of it we are.” - David Whyte

Lying in the green space below the Main Street bridge, I soaked in the sound of my aloneness. Tears welled up in my eyes from the profundity of David Whyte's words. Set apart from the bustle of the city, I embraced this moment alone.

When the essay was complete, I got back on my three wheeler and I followed the bike trail to Scribbles -- my recent favorite place for decaf green tea and writing. I found a seat by the front window and I checked my phone. Waiting there for me was an email from my friend Laurie with the subject, "Photo of the Day." With a thoughtful message, Laurie was sending along a photo that she'd taken of me just minutes before. It turns out that I wasn't alone in that listening time with David Whyte. Laurie had joined me from the bridge.

There's a miracle in the listening. When I listen, I can hear the whole town moving and shifting around me. When I listen, I become part of something so much bigger than myself. There's a river and birds and a whole family of humanity chirping their way through the day. Guess what, Hal, you're not alone. Sh... Listen.

I wrote a song called Underneath the Surface that was my dad's favorite. It's all about listening. The lyrics go like this:

"Listen for the whisper rolling thunder all around you.
If you do it'll turn into a memory to hold.
Listen for the rocks, trees and the bumblebees around you.
Everywhere you know that there's a story to unfold.
Underneath the surface, hidden down below,
there's a story waiting. Listen and you'll know.” — H. Walker

Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for reading. I guess the challenge is never to give up. It's never too late to learn something new -- even if it's something so basic as listening. Whatever the case, today's a great to practice. Enjoy. Have a good Saturday. ❤️ Hal