February 9, 2026

And I care what you think

Feb 09, 2026

Margot Couture, *The Convention of the Minnies, Oil on Canvas,* 5’ x 6’ at Alone Time

Hi.

I’m not paying enough attention. I think I haven’t been for some weeks.

I’m looking at the above image, a photograph of a painting at Alone Time gallery. I’m poking around the image zoomwise trying to access something that was right in front of me when I was there. I can tell by the texture of my memory that my attention was flimsy in the moment. Now the show—The Magic Power of the Shovel, New Work By Margot Couture + Libbie Allen.—is closed and the painting is somewhere else.

In my defense (don’t be defensive, Emily) it was very, very cold outside and in the gallery). I find it hard to thrive below 60°F and it was 34°.

I can’t just blame the cold. In general, my attention budget feels overdrawn. It’s possible I’m paying too much attention to too many things at the same time. Or I’m squandering my attention on low-nutrient things. And this is just a complicated moment (by complicated I mostly mean difficult) to be a person.

The good thing about a practice—like the practice of looking at art, exercise, meditating—is if we can maintain it, even when the desire gets scratchy, when we realize we’ve been slouching, all is not lost. Like maintaining the dam even when the water is low. I suppose there is the option to pause a practice, though that can have side effects. Anyway—

I guess I’m sharing this as a kind of apology for my blurriness. I hope we all have at least one crisp, illuminated moment this week.

Here is some work I’ve seen.

PS: I wrote this midday, Sunday. The halftime show last night was crisp and illuminated.