attendere

i love this word: attention. from the Latin meaning to give heed or to stretch toward, like to stretch your mind toward something. "the word is used that way in Chaucer, as i remember from a class i had about a thousand years ago. ah, enough, says my friend, i have to stretch my mind toward work, go away now." (the grail, p. 55) this and other pith and wit c/o brian doyle who has a lovely rambling writing style that makes run-on sentences seem somehow poetic and holy. page 51 is another such run-on that i particularly resonated with, "...and not for the first time and not for the last i think to myself that one of the cooler things in life is meeting people who like what they do and are good at what they do and are doing exactly the thing that they should be doing at that particular time; a rare and delightful symmetry and synchronicity in a world so often mostly shatter and rattle and shiver and smash." listen well. attend. may we all have such symmetry!