Attention must be paid

It's Arthur Miller's famous line, but I'll appropriate it for the moment, because it more or less summarizes an overwhelming feeling of inadequacy that washed over me as I drove home a few minutes ago. I'd been at the gym, trying to shake off the scrim of a week of lethargy and trying to rejoin the adult world, at least momentarily, after a day spent with Cleo. I turned on the local classical radio station and heard the clean, exact brilliance of a composition that could only be Haydn or Mozart. Yes, confirmed the host a few minutes later: Mozart's sixth serenade, played by the Academy of Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields. But wait, I thought. I'd enjoyed hearing, entirely at random, the piece, which I didn't know. But the thought that such works -such works of worth and value - are constantly playing, for the 23 hours and change when I don't happen to have the radio on, suddenly seemed overwhelming. We refer to the corpus of classical music, as thought it were a single body, or individual: someone, or something, we could know. In reality, though, the world of interesting classical music sprawls, and includes thousands upon thousands of works. It's a body, all right: but one composed of legions of cells, rather than one familiar face.

And that, in turn, reminded me of my day with Cleo. With L. back at work, the nursery closed, and my semester not yet begun, I got the rare chance to spend a full Wednesday with my local toddler. For the most part, it was much fun: her Santa hat drew smiles wherever we went, and she shared her applesauce at lunch, like a true lady. But by 4 p.m., she still hadn't napped, and I was wishing for a few minutes of my own: a breather, in which I could clean up, check my e-mail, and try the next page of my new graded Arabic reader. I put out glue, and tape, and paper, for her, and asked her if she'd like to make a collage - and headed for the kitchen sink, and its pile of dirty dishes. And within three minutes, I heard a little voice, from the next room: Daddy! You're not paying attention to me.

I didn't even know she knew the phrase - and certainly didn't imagine that she'd level such a charge. Hadn't I just paid attention to her for eight consecutive hours? And yet, now I know just what she meant. Each moment is its own. You may have read, this very morning, the complete series of Laura Numeroff books to your toddler - but she's moved on, and wants to show you something now. Likewise, you may have enjoyed that serenade that was just broadcast - but now there's Smetana on, and he deserves your attention, as well.

The current is unrelenting, the well unfathomably deep, the animals voracious. Your attention may be limited, but it's in infinite demand.