Sabbatical: How Can I Reconnect To My Attention?

Question of January

You all, I’m going out of the country on sabbatical for 4 weeks! I’ve built many mini-pauses into my life, but never to this degree and never so clearly around work. My December has bustled with a double-work frequency as I pre-write, pre-organize, and get everything in order to be able to take off and actually not check email or tend to anything other than my family and myself. Radical for me. I haven’t “not worked” since that early postpartum window with Eula a decade ago. I walk the walk of not being ‘connected’ to screens all the time and I am a responsible human whose work life requires being on a screen for about 80% of it. It is a constant friction for me: the screens, plus the working while parenting while fielding thousands of other attention seeking modern life elements. That split attention. I’m not bringing my computer. I’m not bringing anything to do. No novels or non-fiction or any type of book to read (!!). Nothing to ‘learn’ on the side. No agenda. Nada. One thing: I will be exploring—very loosely—a creative project that has been wanting air from back-stage. I’m so curious to see what happens to my brain and heart space in this loamy void. I will be being where I am. I will be connecting to what and who is in front of me. I will be in an active wondering around what happens to a person’s presence when they are actually fully present. I will be dreaming on the inquiry of how I support others in this same process.

How can I reconnect to my attention?

This has been my question for a long time. It’s my focused question this month.

My favorite rock from the Yellowstone river (sunrise/sunset); my girls, wrestling, silliness.

Clarification: I’m not saying we all need to leave our daily lives to find our attention. That isn’t realistic. It’s useful to change scenery but integration happens back in the fabric of everyday lived life. BUT, I do believe we are all under a current spell of thinking that what we are living is normal. It’s not. This pace, this stress and yank on our attention, this forever productive summer (i.e. capitalism) without the rest of winter. It is not normal. It is stretching us. It is hurting us all. I want to listen to myself. I keep waking up with glimmers, words, phrases, calls, as if being beckoned: Wake up, Molly. Listen, listen, Molly. I do not exaggerate when I tell you that I am hearing ancestors and those beyond calling out: Is anyone listening or paying attention?

This sabbatical is a personal and professional intention that also coincides with a vision Chris and I had decades ago—to take our future children out of this country for a chunk of time, to share with them some of the flavor of how I grew up abroad (not in a northern American rural state), to widen their perspectives so they can grow into adults aware of global responsibility. My original vision was a 1 - 1.5 year relocation involving collaboration within the country we landed in. That may still happen one day. However, given some life circumstances on our end, it has turned instead into a month-long journey to Latin America. In many ways, I chose the easy thing, which I historically have almost never done, which I am noticing is different for me, an unfamiliar and positive new wiring. I desire to be a family of four meeting our day—together—instead of split off into our different school and work lanes. Our small community here (and our larger family and friend group) has weathered some massive and devastating shocks. That, along with all of the death and destruction on the world stage, has me leaning even more toward intimacy and togetherness.

It’s an odd time to go anywhere and do anything.

It’s complex to travel.

For a few weeks in November, I considered cancelling the whole thing. How could I go do something enjoyable and good for me when so many people were losing, losing, losing, dying, dying, dying? But my friends who’ve faced personal loss and struggled deeply this last year got firm with me. Go. You have to go. Don’t be ridiculous. Don’t limit your joy because others have suffered. It might even be offensive to do so.

So here we go.

What does this mean for Modern Mammaling in January?

For the rest of this month, I’ve pre-written some meditations/hybrid poems on the Question of The Month. I’m back in early February and know I’ll be excited to come back to you all with all of the reflections and curiosities. In the meantime, if you have any questions, hit up my Column (info there on how to submit).

What happens if we don’t tend to our attention?

There’s a lot on the line—for our collective future.

We are being asked to PAY ATTENTION.

We can’t pay attention if our attention is fractured.

I don’t have any answers, just a willingness to feel into the questions and a desire to live wholly and show up for myself, my people, all the people, the planet and this era.

Side note: I am the Queen of Maloproprisms. At dinner a few nights ago, I stated to my family with such dogged clarity, “Point in case.” Chris looked at me, smiled that smile and offered, “I think it’s case in point.”

All to say, point in case.

Love,