The serendipity of distraction
Why is it that certain activities lead us so eagerly astray?
Photo illustration by John Kehe
鈥淗ow about a fire?鈥� my husband says, heading for the wood stove, and I smile, knowing I鈥檒l be toasty warm in, oh, 45 minutes to an hour. The wood is already in and the kindling chopped. Where everything jams up is the newspaper-crumpling.聽
There is no sheet of newspaper, which Dave has theoretically already read, on which he cannot find something new to pique his interest. There鈥檚 an article about someone who is only 21 and yet is named Gladys; there鈥檚 some guy who thinks he can get a half-mil for the tiny house down the street; and look at that, the entire East Coast is graphically covered in raindrops. I get up and put on a sweater and return to find out that Safeway has Fuji apples on sale, and it鈥檚 still cold. We call this 鈥渞eading the fire.鈥�
Both of us read the fire all day long. We launch into conversation with a particular point in mind, but something shiny will pop up to alter the trajectory, and our dialogue lurches around until it founders in unfamiliar territory.
鈥淚鈥檓 heading over to the hardware store ...鈥�
鈥淭he one on Fremont? Did you see that huge backhoe?鈥�
鈥淪ewer work. They鈥檝e got it wide open. John said he saw a rat over there the size of a cocker spaniel.鈥�
鈥淭hat reminds me. Don鈥檛 throw out any plastic bags. Margo needs them for her dog.鈥�
By the time we鈥檝e 鈥渞ead the fire鈥� all the way into the subject of plastic pollution and the sorry state of the world鈥檚 plankton, we have no idea what we might have needed at the hardware store. We can guess all day and never get warm.
Personally, I can crumple newspaper like nobody鈥檚 business, but I can鈥檛 look up anything in the dictionary without reading the fire. It鈥檚 not the worst thing. I meander through it and trip over fascinating words and derivations, and time stretches luxuriously.
There are renowned writers who are accomplished fire readers. James Michener, for instance, starts his books right around page 200, and then begins backing away. He鈥檚 got someone sitting under a tree and fixin鈥� to stir up the plot, and then he gets sidelined by the tree, and its history, and the contributions of the minerals in the soil, and the composition of the substrate, and the geological record of upheaval, and the deposition of 颅dinosaur bones, until he鈥檚 backed himself right up to the Triassic in the preface. What makes him a renowned writer is he can eventually find his way back to the guy under the tree and start going a little further forward. If I had tried to steer a novel that way, I鈥檇 have ended up beached in the first chapter clutching a treatise on wing development in the Cretaceous.聽
We don鈥檛 even get a newspaper anymore. It鈥檚 gone digital now. I look up words online and rarely wander. We finally got rid of the wood stove and its soot and dust and crackle and charm. Instead we have a spiffy smaller appliance with a push-button remote control and pretend logs. We don鈥檛 read the fire anymore. We get warm in a jiffy, and time passes predictably, and we鈥檙e probably more focused.
But focus isn鈥檛 everything.