Carol and I were sitting across from each other at the kitchen table. She was working on her book and listening to National Public Radio. I was reading the New York Times Book Review.
Carol laughed and said something.
“What?” I said distractedly, and kept on reading.
She repeated what she had said. It still didn’t register with me. I think it had to do with something she had heard on the radio.
Finally I looked up. “Uhn,” I said.
It’s not that I was intentionally ignoring Carol, it’s just that when I am reading I practically go into a trance state, and I am not particularly aware of the world around me.
Carol knows this, and politely ignored the fact that I had ignored her. She settled back into her writing, and I settled back into my reading.
Sometimes I become so oblivious of the world around me that I amaze myself. What I lack in mindfulness, I make up for in power of concentration.
Must be genetic. I’m the same way. :)
Not me. I missed the concentration gene and got the distraction gene — probably from Mom. I go nuts if there’s any noise at all when I’m reading. I can’t stand having a radio play, tv on, even the infernal kids across the street on their big wheels drive me nuts. (I create ingenious ways to silence them too..heh heh heh… of course further distracting myself.) White noise and lots of it is the only way for this reader.