Being present, his and hers

  

It's day one of a trip through the eastern Washington desert. Robin and I had an interesting discussion tonight about being present in the moment together, and how differently we do it. 

Mine is a mediated engagement. I carry a camera. I carry binoculars. I intently engage what I am seeing, and I feel the most available to the moment by this activated attention toward it. At its best, it feels deeply trancelike and meditative. But it's a deliberate attentiveness, a journey through the moment   to somewhere else, a little like effortlessly pulling oars through water. I am moving through the moment, working out visual complexities through the camera, or focused on acquiring the identity of a faint chip I hear in the canopy high overhead. I am engaged in making something from the moment.

It can be hard for me to detect just what my partner is experiencing. She carries nothing but herself, and there is often no outward sign save when I can detect pleasure on her face when the moment is particularly nice. She is the first to admit that the dynamic range of her emotional responsiveness is much less than mine. We talked over dinner about our differences.

Most of the time, she's sensing and attending to all the sensory input of the moment in an aware, watchful manner. But it's not reactive. It's not all encompassing and engaging in the way it is for me. 

“It's because you're an introvert and an artist,” she said. “You have so much more internal sensation than I do. You have an intense emotional response to everything you see. I see what's there. I respond, but not emotionally.”

“Then how do you know you're responding?”

“That's it exactly.”

“I'm an extrovert,” she continued. “I see the objects, the relationships, the textures, I hear the sounds, feel the internal and external sensations but I don't much notice my response to it. If it's a narrative about something or an interaction with a person who is having a feeling, I'll have an emotional response. Otherwise, I notice what's there, not my response. You're an introvert, you notice how you feel about the light falling on something. You're too busy feeling inside to notice where you are.”

“That's why I always know which way to turn when we leave the hotel room, and you don't.”