The Feedback Portion

December twenty-third. The last session before the holiday break, and neither of us had to stay for the feedback portion. The class was technically over. The instructor had already said the thing instructors say when they mean you're free to go. Simone and I looked at each other and stayed anyway, which I think says something, though I'm not entirely sure what.

The feedback this time was about attention, specifically, what you're actually paying attention to when you think you're paying attention to something else. The example was small and specific and I'm not going to reproduce it here because it would lose everything in translation, but I wrote it down on the paper in front of me and then looked at the paper for a long time afterward. I had been doing this. The thing they were describing. I had been doing it for almost a year with the camera and I had a name for it now that was not the name I would have chosen, but it fit better than mine would have.

mid-realization face, circa December 2018

Simone asked me on the way out whether I was going to write about it. I said I didn't know yet, which is what I say when I already know the answer but want a day to pretend I don't. She gave me the look she gives me when she knows I already know the answer.

the coat-hook debrief. every time.

We walked to the corner, stood in the cold for a few minutes saying goodbye the way you do when you've just been in a room where something landed, and then went our separate ways. It was already dark by five o'clock, the way it is in December, and the walk home felt about three blocks shorter than usual. I'm not sure why I'm noting that except that I noticed it, which is maybe the whole point.