“Aussie, let Florence come into the office.”

“Grrrr!”

“Florence won’t take away your bone, she just likes to hang out.”

“Grrrr!”

“Come on Aussie, we’re lucky to have Florence with us for 2 weeks, she’s your friend, a lovely dog, and even Henry has stopped barking at her.”

“Grrrr!”

“She licks your lips to show respect every morning, she doesn’t sleep in your bed, she waits her turn for meals, she’s no threat to anybody.”

“Grrrr!”

What would I do without these daily distractions? What would I do without Henry rushing into the office, Bobby the toy rabbit spilling out of his mouth? Cleaning dog poop from the yard or picking up branches that have fallen from the big winds? Staring out at the gigantic woodpecker that has landed right inside the feeder, not on the edges like the smaller birds, looking around to proclaim ownership before proceeding to eat the seeds, eyeing me as if to assess my size as I watch him from indoors. The bluejays are next, nasty bunch, and only later the juncos, chickadees, and sparrows will come in for the leavings.

What would my workday feel like without these disturbances? That’s what I thought they were for many years, never the main deal, only barriers to full concentration and a fixed focus. Talking to other writers, I discovered that male writers especially saw such distractions as enemy, threatening their full attention. They seemed to approach the blank page or screen with the ferocious concentration of warriors.

Women writers, I thought, knew lots more about distraction—because of picking up children from school, calling the plumber, remembering to pick up groceries, planning dinner, putting the wash in the dryer, and snow tires for the car and checking in with the oil supplier and why didn’t the washer complete a full cycle instead of leaving the clothes full of water and is there a mouse in the mouse trap by the refrigerator, etc. etc.

I wanted to be like the men: driven, fierce, deaf to phone calls and other interruptions. I used to meditate like that, too, concentration deep, focus narrow, as if going to war with anything that threatened to impinge on my consciousness.

I haven’t sat like that in a long time. I sit with the full body, not just an empty mind; awareness practices increase my wellbeing. They often bring joy and lightness, but at the least, wellbeing.

Often, I would glimpse scenes like the one above at the edge of my vision and keep them there, determinedly staring at the screen. As if the few purple asters still surviving outside were going to ambush me any moment and grab tons of my precious attention. As if the small maple in back that has managed to keep its red leaves will pounce on my consciousness if I only let it.

How grandiloquent. How stupid.

I wished I could be like those writers who write all day and into the night—mostly men. I dreamed of Handel, who’s reputed to have written the entire Messiah in a month with tears in his eyes because God was sending it to him Federal Express. Maybe, I thought, if I gave it single-minded attention, God would talk to me, too. She’ll dictate what I need to write and I’ll punch it out on the keyboard, no problem because I still can type fast.

And if some flower calls me, a dog, the shadow of a hawk, a yellow leaf blown here and there by big gusts, chimes chiming madly—hey, that’s just the day’s punctuation and no more: a small comma here, a semicolon there. After all, I’d remind myself, I do need some punctuation, unless I’m postmodern.

Rebecca Solnit, reflecting about George Orwell growing his rose garden before writing 1984 and Animal Farm, said: “They were questions about … where pleasure and beauty and hours with no quantifiable practical result fit into the life of someone, perhaps of anyone, who also cared about justice and truth and human rights and how to change the world. … It was equally an argument against the idea that everything that human beings need can be reduced to quantifiable, tangible goods and conditions.”

Someone who was passionate against totalitarianism at a time of its threatening rise expended his energy for a long while to grow beautiful roses. Is life about how many pages you’ve written today? How much money you’ve made? How many steps you’ve taken as shown on your pedometer or smart watch? Or is it about a red maple that just won’t die, a woodpecker that lands smack in the middle of a feeder, orange bursts of sunset, or a canine duel over a marrow bone?

What about the tenderness of each moment? The invitation to get closer to the earth and to the intimacy of these early, dark nights? The transience of beauty? What do I sacrifice in the name of achievement?