Attention Inventory: January

On miso-adjacent tastes, quiet gestures (+ unabashed absurdity), and blessed scams

Nothing succeeds without taking stock. Below, this month’s “Attention Inventory” list of 5 clocked preoccupations, including: The miso-adjacent, bookending quiet gestures with unabashed absurdity…and a case for well-intended scams.

Image of Farah Saleh, via the Archive of Gestures

1. Care as Gesture
   
   Two unrelated reminders of what the language of care can feel like:
   
   A.
   
   "When I buy baklava, which is not often because I eat too many, I leave a few for her on her windowsill, with a head scarf over them so the wasps don’t come. For these little gifts we don’t thank each other with words. They are commas of care. . .”
   
   
   B.
   
   “Suddenly I was wondering about getting home a day early without telling anybody. Or asking. I hadn’t thought about it as being anything peculiar, because I was going home, and one of the things about belonging somewhere is that you can go there without permission…”
   
   May we punctuate our days with these.
   (Excerpted from John Berger’s From A to X, and Dorothy Baker’s Cassandra at the Wedding, respectively).

   

2. Deliberate Delicacies
   
   For those with a condiment budget, I’m tucking these here under the line item of…selective embellishments that will cause 99% of my friends to roll their eyes at me.