Breath.

Posted on | December 9, 2007 |

Morning crowds up against the glass like a dark gorilla; icicles hang sharp and pointed against the rosy pale of dawn. Day has come too soon all week. I’ve been fighting it, staying up late and then hating that first milky light spilling across the sky; never feeling like I get everything done. Then I roll over in bed and fined my little one’s soft head snuggling towards the nook of my neck. He’s come in sometime in the middle of the night on footie-pajama feet, nuzzling his way between us among the flannel sheets. He smells like heaven.

I breathe in and then exhale on the yoga mat, my limbs uncoiling, ligaments taught like the cat gut strings of a disused mandolin. Downward dog; breath for five inhalations, five exhalations my awareness scattering like chickadees and then narrowing back in towards the oval blue of quiet thought. Warrior pose: feet driving down into the floor, gravity pulling at my legs.

Then I’m sipping coffee and eating toast while driving away from home. The fields are crystalline. We’ve had a lot of snow, and the view of the mountain from the flats where the cows eat sweet grass all summer takes my breath away for an instant. The whole jagged edge of it is lit with the bright gold of day, snow capped and rocky, with the pale sky stretching up and up and up above it, the clouds like discarded garments hanging tattered at the cusp where world meets air.

Inside the classroom day begins with a hundred questions. They’re all there before me, nineteen kids, all wanting to tell a story at the same time. I’m like a dancer now or a magician, the multi tasking never stops. I’m bending to tie a shoe while listening to a story about a pet that has died, while answering a question about where the story-picture paper is kept. My mind becomes pocketed, punctuated, perceptive. I am no longer aware of my breath, and then I ask them to gather. I sing a song of peace in Latin. Dona nobis pachem. I feel my pulse slow. The children begin to gather, their voices joining mine until we’re all singing, breathing together.

I come through the door my body thrumming like a tuning fork. If I stand still I can almost feel it vibrating. My hands maybe quiver, and I’m starving. I crave solitude, but my small boy tumbles upon me, offering kisses. I sit down to eat at the butcher block island. Dry Italian salami and cheddar cheese with herby crackers. I open a bottle of temparnello, just to breath in the sharp sweet scent.

In the dark I spoon around him. His wide shoulders and the curve of his back almost a part of my body’s own geography when we sleep. My skin and his. Thisclose. Our hearts following the same quite choreography of breath.

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