Get back into focus
I love to read.
I’ve been a bookworm since I read my first Baby Sitter’s Club Little Sister book in Grade 1. Growing up I loved to hide away in my room and read. As an adult, there has been nothing more luxurious than staying up late into the night for just “one more chapter”. I’ve spent full days in the past doing nothing but getting lost in a book. Or books - on occasion I’ve read two in one day.
Since becoming a mom and a wife and life getting all kinds of crazy, I take less time to read. It has to be something I am very intentional with or it just never happens.
But I’ve noticed something lately.
The other day I went to the beach with my mom and kiddos. It was a beautiful fall day. Mom and the kids were planning to work on their watercolour painting, so I brought a bag full of journals and my book. It felt like the ultimate treat.
But do you know what happened?
I started reading the first page and I quickly lost focus. I kept going back to that page and I couldn’t focus long enough to read more than a few sentences.
I’ve noticed this before. Do you know what I think it is? We are becoming so used to “quick” blips of reading here and there - instant gratification really - that we are losing the skill of quiet, prolonged focus.
As I reflected on this idea, I thought about the scattered feeling I feel so often and wonder if this feeling is related to electronics and social media as well? I don’t actually know the answers to these questions. I’m certain the information would be easy enough to find, but what I DO know, is that I want to be able to lose myself in a book. I don’t want to be attached to my phone, I don’t want to be available to everyone all the time, and I want to be able to sit in silence without feeling like I have to “check” something or “do” something.
The other day I promised myself that I would re-acquaint myself with reading. I’m going to intentionally create time to read. I’m going to tuck my phone/laptop/iPad away in a different room and re-train my eyes and my brain to dance through the pages of a book, rather than perpetually being trained to adjust to a moving screen and grabbing little scraps of information as it moves by.
If you are also trying to create some space in your life and in your mind, perhaps you also need to consider what your time looks like and if there were a way you’d rather be spending it than you are right now.
Maybe you will consider putting the screen down, turning off the TV, and just re-training your brain to be present. Maybe that means listening to your kids read you a book. Maybe it means pulling out your crocheting. Maybe it means going for that walk you keep meaning to go on but never actually get to.
As for me, I’m signing off and picking up my book.