Activities, Week Two

Some possible activities to try inspired by practicing attention:

One

During your walk or run, give attention to your route. How would you describe it to others? Try using details from your periphery, like: 

  1. the hills
  2. the landmarks
  3. how crooked the trail is
  4. how far it is from the road and from the river
  5. where the potholes, the divots, the cracked and cratered asphalt are
  6. when the path dips down or rises up
  7. where the path swerves slightly

Two

Some variations on 10 Things I Noticed…

  1. in my periphery
  2. as flashes/movement off to the side
  3. that I don’t normally notice
  4. that I normally notice, but I didn’t this time
  5. what I heard
  6. 5 delightful sounds and 5 irritating ones

Three*

*note: you can also turn this into a “10 Things I Noticed List”

As you move, take note of what happens when nothing happens, those small things that often go unnoticed, or that we take for granted as part of the unimportant background to the main action: 

  1. weather
  2. people
  3. cars
  4. clouds
  5. birds — the “boring” ones that don’t count on your bird “life list”
  6. bugs
  7. the surface of the trails
  8. the dips in the road
  9. as many entrances/exits/openings/thresholds as you can find, the way out or into the action

Four

As you walk or run, pay attention, not to anything in particular, but to everything. Be open to being interrupted. If and when that happens, stop moving. Make a note — on your phone, in a notebook you’ve carried with you — about what’s interrupted you and how and why. Try to delight in this interruption.

And, if you really like to experiment, here are two more things to try that I just found from the poet CA Conrad, in their poem, TL;DR:

Five

“Each evening for a week, go for a walk. Stop 3 times to narrate what you see 360 degrees around you into a recorder on your phone or another device.

Try to list what you see, “A cat crossing a roof, a car playing Lady Gaga parked below, a blue postal box, a LOTTERY sign flashing in gas station window.”

When you see one object on your walk that holds your attention, closely examine it while narrating what it looks like. Where could it have come from?

Go home and sit on the floor inside a dark closet. Listen to your recording. When you reach the part about the object you had carefully scrutinized, do not focus on what you narrated but on why you aimed your attention at the object in the first place. Take notes for a poem.”

Six

“Get a clear drinking glass, a pitcher of water, and a black Magic Marker.

Make a black line on the middle of the drinking glass.

Place your face near the glass on the table. Pour water while carefully listening and watching it hit the mark; do this 3 times.

Pour the water a fourth time with eyes closed, letting your ears remember the mark. You have successfully braided your eyes and ears.

Now sit back, close your eyes, and listen to the most immediate sounds in the building. Let the layers reveal themselves, shifting to what you hear further away, then further.

When you feel you have heard everything, wait. Sit there a little longer, listening for the faintest of traffic in the sky or a faraway rumble. Take notes for a poem.”

Conrad suggests closing your eyes and listening inside a building, but I’d like to try doing this while outside, moving. Or if moving with eyes closed doesn’t feel safe, moving then stopping to close your eyes at different spots.