Complete Attention

“One of the mythic hero’s most important tasks is to travel to a strange new land and come back 

enlightened or bewildered.” *

Honestly, with a lede like that, who isn’t going to continue reading. Today, my lunch was a 

sandwich and The New York Review of Books.

If Donna were still alive, she might be reading the story to me. She had been reading the New 

York Review for many decades, many more decades than the three we shared. She would read 

it cover to cover; she gave it her complete attention. High praise.

Concerned that a lapse in Donna’s subscription might nudge the universe off axis, I renewed it 

in her name.

I quietly sit and read. The New York Review has my complete attention.

*  Quote from an article by Yuri Slezkine in the October 22, 2020 issue.