Focus

noun

• the center of interest or activity
• an act of concentrating interest or activity on something
• Geology the point of origin of an earthquake. Compare with epicenter.
• Medicine the principal site of an infection or other disease.
• Linguistics the part of a sentence given prominence, usually for emphasis or contrast.
• the state or quality of having or producing clear visual definition
• another term for focal point.
• the point at which an object must be situated with respect to a lens or mirror for an image of it to be well defined.
• a device on a lens that can be adjusted to produce a clear image.
• Geometry one of the fixed points from which the distances to any point of a given curve, such as an ellipse or parabola, are connected by a linear relation.

verb (focuses, focusing, focused or focusses, focussing, focussed)
[no object]

• (of a person or their eyes) adapt to the prevailing level of light and become able to see clearly
• [with object] cause (one’s eyes) to focus
• [with object] adjust the focus of (a telescope, camera, or other instrument)
• (of rays or waves) meet at a single point.
• [with object] (of a lens) make (rays or waves) meet at a single point.
• [no object] (of light, radio waves, or other energy) become concentrated into a sharp beam of light or energy.
• [with object] (of a lens) concentrate (light, radio waves, or energy) into a sharp beam.
• (focus on) pay particular attention to
• [with object] concentrate
• [with object] Linguistics place the focus on (a part of a sentence).

Origin:
mid 17th century (as a term in geometry and physics): from Latin, literally 'domestic hearth'

http://oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/focus
_______________________________________________________________________________
While trying to learn how I'll come into focus, I begin seeing more clearly from the edges in...

...a week before Christmas, I'm in front of the tree forcing my eyes out of focus...tilting my head slightly left and slightly right until the auras of light from the red and yellow and green and blue bulbs spin around and into each other.  My body and the light outside of me become a kaleidoscope...

...school's out for the year. I watch the buses pull in and line up and then load full of students headed home. The teachers stand on duty between buses, checking to make sure there aren't any kids smoking. One or two of them light up a cigarette while they check. As the buses pull away, the teachers cheer and wave goodbye. The buses flash all of their lights in a celebratory dance. I watch the whole thing, letting my eyes go out of focus, watching the dance of lights blend into the nearly-summer sky...

...the heat paints me into a damp watercolor. I'm not wearing sunscreen, only a bit of tanning oil for two distinct reasons-- one, with my eyes closed, I focus not on what I'll actually see but on what I smell--the coconut oil paints a picture of a tropical oasis...bathing beauties in two-piece suits untied at the neck, so that when each girl flips over to work on her other side, she must hold up 'the girls' lest she expose them to the sun and its bathers. Two, without SPF Something-zillion, my very white, very fat self is going to burn, but with tanning oil, I'll tan just like the other girls in their two-piece suits, eye covers over their eyes rather than sunglasses to block the sun, their long hair draped over the end of their lounge chairs. I stare up at the sun with my eyes closed, watching the blur of the eclipse the image makes behind my eyelids. I watch the image move, dancing out of the frame. When I shift my closed-eye vision back to center, another dancing spot appears for me to follow. I do this until I fall asleep. When I wake, I'm burnt and my skin is patterned by the strips of plastic from the lounge chair. I stand up and stare at the indent my body has left, before folding up the chair and going back inside the house to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich...

...I sit to write in an active panic attack. I'm at work working hard to make sure no one can tell something's wrong because these are the things my life has schooled me to keep shamefully hidden. I don't know where to start. I'm focused on anxiety, anxiety, anxiety but that is too big. So I focus in on the letter A, writing:

anesthetize all
anxious animals
an anxious animal
advises as an
aborted anger
assimilates an
anxious adult
and an adolescent
as anxious as
an adult
asking anxiously,
always
aware and
always armed,
advancing
an army,
applying an
argument against
abusive authoritarians

as an adult,
absolutely absorbed,
an anxious ache
alienates
awake, awry,
and afraid
an awful
arousal arrives
asserting
adolescent
anxiety
again

and the anxiety's intensity begins to lessen. Deliberate focus, one guiding concept, melts immensity...

As I look to reach, touch, and eventually hold my core, my essence, focus does two things for me. I may use it to blend myself into whatever swirls around me OR I may use it to turn off whatever swirls around me. Shifting focus is self-preservation.  Self-preservation buys me time in which, perhaps, all the senses and sensations that are mine will be mine and with them I will shift into focus.