Curtain of distraction
Curtain of distraction
Recently while walking Lola and Camille, I had a conversation with a neighbor who was watching her kids playing badminton using a structure made of 3” PVC piping as a net. She described it as the “Curtain of Distraction.” While cleaning out their garage her kids and their friends had discovered this structure and it was immediately pulled out and set up for an improvised game of badminton. She sighed as she watched the kids, who had been helping to clean the garage, happily smacking the shuttlecock back and forth over the horizontal pipe. The contents of her garage lie strewn across the driveway and back yard, still, scattered and forgotten.
Jody, my neighbor, told me that the “Curtain of Distraction” is a recently devised psychological weapon of amusing distraction now used in college basketball games. It is supposed to distract the visiting team while they shoot free throws. It is similar to fans waving towels, chanting cheers, or shouting insults; though more focused and planned. It is obviously very effective in disrupting concentration – and execution – in emotionally charged, pivotal moments. The distractions have a measurable impact on the opposing teams’ score. There can be more than a 10% reduction in the number of completions. In a close match, that’s the difference between winning and losing scores.
YouTube videos show the curtain of distraction in action
“Curtain of Distraction” YouTube videos showed them to be creative and entertaining and, from the standpoint of my old fashioned 20th Century version of fair play and sportsmanship, disturbing.
In the end zones of the college games that I saw online, there is a structure, like the one in Jody’s yard, with two vertical PVC pipes supporting a horizontal pipe upon which is hung “the curtain.” At the opportune moment, the curtain is flung open and whoever is shooting is exposed to some random form of craziness. Players have no idea what they can expect to see. One cannot prepare for a writhing Elvis impersonator or a vignette in which a young woman struggles as a comic dentist employs huge pincers to extract an enormous tooth from her mouth.
Cheerleaders from another school were interviewed to find out what they thought about it. They were so enthusiastic; they decided that they needed to step up their game to make even more competitively devastating distractions.
Internal curtains of crazy thoughts
This curtain doesn’t have to be an actual fabric curtain. It can be just as readily the crazy thoughts that distract us while we are in a highly charged emotional state.
For me, my meditation time can easily morph into a highly charged emotional state. Highly charged doesn’t necessarily mean confrontational and dangerous. I get charged witnessing the bubbles on the ponds’ still surface; wondering what stories the fish beneath the surface might have. Each of my imaginary bubbles can be a portal to a whole new world with plots, subtexts, interwoven tangents, and occasionally, insights. It takes just a gentle suggestion of a suggestion, to get me to plunge into some fish-breath rabbit hole.
While my morning meditation often becomes wildly entertaining, I find a lot of value identifying the curtains of others. This happens during a PetMassageTM.
The process of PetMassaging: being mindlessly mindful
When I am fully immersed in the process of PetMassaging, I enter a meditative state of mindful mindlessness. I am being. I am being aware that I am touching, feeling, and experiencing. I am being present for the dog. I am not looking for anything in particular. If a lump or knot presents to my fingertips, I acknowledge it and let it go. You’ll understand why by the final paragraph. I am being open to acknowledging deeper curtains of distraction.
Opening potentiality
The back of my mind opens to the diffused softness of images which slip shyly into my awareness. They could be from me; my memories, concerns, and plans. If the images or contexts are foreign to my experience, they must not be mine. They must be from the dog in my hands. I must be witnessing their memories, concerns, and plans.
The curtain opens and who knows what’s behind it. For the dog, I’m the visiting team.
I ask the dogs’ humans to corroborate what I believe I have imagined. Although it’s unlikely that they and their dogs would put the same significance on an event, they often tell me they recognize the description of the scene where the memory occurred.
Sharing memories of dogs
The experience could be of smelling the musky wind while on a rocky boat ride. It could be the sensation of standing on the steps outside a back door at dusk, a chorus of cicadas above, a solitary cricket below, waiting for someone to open the door so I can come back inside. It could be the feeling of aliveness, galloping full speed, across a sweet wet field. It could be the scent and texture of wet foam rubber ripped from a freshly degassing sofa pillow. It could be the confusion of not being able to find the cat that has been around my whole life. It could be the curious new set of disconcerting scents that are not supposed to be in my master’s body; but are, and are growing in intensity, daily.
What’s behind the dog’s curtain?
Something important happens when I glimpse what’s behind the dog’s curtain. By sharing the image of what the dog is processing, I am the buddy, the witness, the seer. We share the image and the emotion that gives it meaning. Together, we identify it, and we name it. When it is joyful, we celebrate its place in the dog’s life. When it’s restrictive, it is defused. Together we dilute its power to distract.
This shared moment shifts the direction, the tone, and the intent of the PetMassageTM. The session can then move from generalized relaxation and stress relief toward addressing and resolving long-term, habitual distractors at deeper levels. The body-mind moves toward resolution. The body-mind becomes more balanced and health-accepting.
PetMassageTM is a support system for being. That’s how PetMassageTM works.
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