Concentration

Yesterday morning, when I opened the curtains to the sunrise, I was presented with the following scene:

I grabbed my camera, threw on some shoes and went out to capture this fleeting fusion of light and fog.  In a T-shirt. In 36 degrees.  I was entranced by the sun slicing through the fog, kissing the daffodils which were linked by gossamer spiderwebs strung with dew pearls.  And I spent about 15 minutes shooting and shooting, oblivious to the cold.

I've mentioned before about how much I detest being cold.  This is ironic, considering I lived without central heat for three winters and one of my favorite pastimes is snowboarding.  Apparently, however, concentrating on capturing an ephemeral moment on a camera's sensor can completely distract me.

There was once one other thing that proved I could be distracted from my aversion to cold.  When D and I were touring New Zealand, we visited a river famous for on-going successful gold panning.  Lacking the proper equipment, namely - a pan, D went down to the river and began sifting through the black sand looking for gold with his bare hands.  I stood off, skeptical, fully expecting his efforts to come to nothing.  But they didn't.  After a few minutes he called me over and presented a few teeny flakes of gold.

I DO love me some shiny sparkly things, so now the quest was on.  I plunged my hands into the icy water over and over again and found some of my very own gold flakes.  After about 1/2 hour, D was bored of the exercise and our take was feeble given the effort expended.  But I think he probably had to lightly threaten to take the campervan and leave me to my treasure hunt in order to persuade me to cease the search.  My hands were numb and I had lost circulation in my feet from crouching on rocks in the river for so long.

But like yesterday morning, I didn't even feel the cold until I stopped concentrating on the task at hand.  Then I felt the chill to my very core.