Attention Must be Paid

Fifty years ago when I was in high school we all took the Kuder Preference Test. This was a survey of our interests and might predict what paths we should take to find fulfillment in our lives. The results of my test were evenly divided between Forest Ranger (What?) and Social Worker (Egads!). I had thought I wanted to be an artist, preferably a window dresser at Macy's in New York City. I was always adept arts and crafts things and had won local awards and prizes, nothing big. Mine was an artistic flair of the second tier, and in my heart of hearts I knew it.

I went on to a highly competitive liberal arts college in New England where I first majored in biology, quit that when the going got tough in Chem 2, segued into art history. As I walked each day from where I lived to the campus I noticed with delight the changes in the plants and trees and searched for the tracks in the snow of the many creatures who lived in that suburban ecosystem. To this day I could say where the fiddleheads would come up in the spring, where the crocuses were, the scylla in their glorious purple, and where to look for the earliest snowdrops. In late days of spring I loved to walk under the maple trees and pick up those winged seeds, split them open and stick them on my nose. In the fall I stopped to look at the fallen horse chestnuts all spiky and green. I knew how to gently squash them underfoot so that the nuts fell out in shiny mahogany perfection. As a kid I would do this and collect bags of them.

After college I went to art school on a scholarship where I had to put in a lot of time working in the education department of an art museum. My artworks were critiqued unmercifally and I loved it. But what I really learned was that my connection to kids in the museum's programs was what I wanted to do. (I was still walking slowly to class so I wouldn't miss the birds nesting in the vines and the flowering of the lilacs.)

I became a teacher (social work!). A great joy was being outdoors, camping, hiking. Teaching, as I have done, incorporated the things I love most.

As an older person (wrinkled and idiosyncratic), I look back and think that for many reasons I did not pay attention to some of what I really wanted to do. I should have been a biologist or a botanist, or a forest ranger. It could have been my focus as a teacher. I had my parents' voices in my head too much. ("Be anything you want. But it should be something really abstruse - a classicist, a writer of dry historic..")

Now, as a wizened old person, I regret that that I did not pay attention to what I really wanted to do. Fortunately it has turned out well: I roam the wild acres we live on and revel in it. I have introduced generations of children to the natural environment. I have time to make my art such as it is.

But I very much regret that I did not pay attention to the world or the U.S. for great stretches of time. I had been involved in the Civil Rights movement, I protested the Viet Nam war, I dragged my toddlers to the Nixon Counter Inagural and exposed them to tear gas. I was a community organizer for education. I was oblivious to the recessions of the eighties and I practically slept through the nineties.

As an addend to my powerful spouse I went to a White House dinner in the Clinton era and we hiked two summer weekends with Bob MacNamara and I was anxious a few times with Kay Graham in her salons. I traveled the world, marveling at everything, shaking the hands of presidents and scoundrels. But I did not pay attention!

After a ceremonial trip to many South American countries, my eyes were opened to this wonderful continent. In the years following, I visited as many equatorial countries as I could. I went with my friend, Marie for many trips- Peru, Equador, the Galapagos, Costa Rica, Panama, Brazil. These were not ceremonial trips, they were bare bones, out houses with tarantulas, fer de lance snakes on night hikes, riding horses through caman infested waters, cities in the midst of coups, and wonderful birds and tropical plants. I paid attention!

Attention must be paid to our present American situation. We have a president who is among the best of American statesmen. It's early to tell, and Obama has the hardest row to hoe of any president so far. Yet, he's still energetic, idealistic, pragmatic, articulate as we have never seen before. We must pay attention to the health care issues all of us care so much about, and we must pay attention to honesty and ethics. We must pay attention to children and having rigorous standards of education. We must not let our loving attention to our country be deflected by the selfish, dewy cheeked, dumb likes of Sara Palin or the shrill and cranky agenda of Rush Limbaugh.

We must pay attention.