The Perils of Juggling?

There were some drawbacks to Jason's career as a teenage juggler on the boardwalk. One--shown in the previous excerpt--was that he got used to being a solo act, a solo person. Another was that the marvelous concentration he developed for juggling became his way of blocking out everything in life he didn't want to deal with.

In the passage below, his wife, Eileen, confronts him about it.

"Did lying to your family bother you?"

I clear my throat. "Only when I thought about it."

"That's your M.O.," she says flatly. "Don't stress what you don't think about. Nice trick."

"It's a by-product of juggling," I explain. "Did I tell you about the mindfulness training they gave us at work last fall? ... This guy came in and taught us how to meditate. You know, breathe in, breathe out, and you pay attention to your breath, you know? Follow your breath with your mind. Which was basically what Bobby taught me when I was eight, when he showed me how to beat the jitters. After the workshop people were going around saying 'Wow, it sounds so easy, but it's impossible.' But for me it was actually easy. I've been doing it my whole life. Up and down, like a cascade, up and down, throw and catch, and the rest is just incidental."