Each Step, Each Breath
Jan. 22nd, 2011 06:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lyricalechoesOur first journey isn't taken on our feet but on our head. But every journey, even this first one, begins with the same problem:
"How do I breathe? Why do I feel only wind instead of the fluid I know and love?" Why, on every trail, do we find the familiar changed?
In a way that is always our first problem, on each new trail we encounter. "How do I breathe?" "Is this air safe?"
I know I have faced that problem many times through my life, besides, of course, that first time.
My first day of Kindergarten was a shock. How do I breathe here in this world I have never known? Why does it take Mom so long to come get me again? What if I don't remember which turns take me back to my classroom?
I knew one boy already named Andrew but he wasn't at my table. The walls were covered in posters and I couldn't read yet. Was that OK? Or was I already behind?
I wondered if I had brought the right lunch. I was so proud of my Strawberry Shortcake lunch box and thermos but could the other kids tell it was bought at a yard sale? What if no one would play with me on the playground?
Eventually, I found friends and grew to love kindergarten but first grade was new all over again. For first grade, I had not just changed schools but also countries. I started first grade at St. Anne's Catholic school in Brussels, Belgium. I really felt I couldn't breathe there! None of the other children spoke English and I didn't know French! My teacher knew a few words of English but I really wanted to speak to the other kids at recess.
St. Anne's was Catholic so there were different rituals, crossing ourselves as we sung a prayer before lunch for example, that I didn't know how to do. Desperate to fit in, I copied the other children but felt painfully obvious of being one move behind the others.
Second grade meant a new country but this time at home. Home this time, however, meant a home in Africa. How do I breathe when, yet again, I did not know the language? Home-schooling was isolating too, as all the other white children my age were sent away to boarding school. I met one African girl, Bebe, who knew some French and she taught me some of the local dialect(which was called Lingala.) I often wonder how Bebe's life turned out after our trails diverged. Does she remember me?
Every trail we face is different. The texture of each path is different. Some paths are muddy, some are dry sand. Some trails we remember for the isolation and some for the people we met on our journey. Every trail is a new adventure. Often I feel I just can't face more change but I have found, if I will pause and breathe, usually I can gather the strength to plod on.
When I first went to physical therapy at 18, the pain was tremendous. How can I continue the repetitions? They wanted me to do how many? Were they serious?
"Breathe," my therapist, Heather, said. "You can do this but you can't if you don't breathe." I passed out one day, right there by the pool after water therapy. After I woke and she saw I was OK, Heather scolded me. "See, what have I told you. To stay aware, to keep from falling, you must breathe!"
I remember, years later, wondering, "Now that I started this parenting trail, how do I breathe? How can I promise to protect my son from all the dangers in this world?" This trail seemed full of dangers: his circumcision might become infected, he might catch RSV, he might roll off the changing table to the floor. So much responsibility, a new life in my arms, how do I breathe? I was ready but not ready. My husband had lost his job just a month before my son was born. With uncertainty and little money, how do I breathe? And yet I did. I breathed for him. As long as I could breathe, I could keep him safe, or at least try to. I needed a clear head to counter my full heart.
Breathing seems so simple and yet sometimes so hard to do. During my third pregnancy, when I learned the baby within me had died, I cried so hard I just ... I couldn't breathe. I couldn't stop my grief enough but self-preservation took over, even when I did not care. A ragged breath in, out. But even if I stopped breathing, nothing could make my baby breathe. He would never feel that life-giving wind. I left him by the trail and somehow, in time, walked away. There are no graves for miscarriages but his loss is close and never quite forgotten.
Breathing is a choice. Mostly involuntary, we will all have times when we can't breathe ... or don't want to. I've traveled many trails, some very unwillingly. But, no matter what we face, we must draw the wind of life inside our lungs. In, out. In, out.
We do not know where our current trail ends or what dangers we will meet along the way. But, forgetting the sorrows of the past, we must remember our infancy ... and breathe.
"How do I breathe? Why do I feel only wind instead of the fluid I know and love?" Why, on every trail, do we find the familiar changed?
In a way that is always our first problem, on each new trail we encounter. "How do I breathe?" "Is this air safe?"
I know I have faced that problem many times through my life, besides, of course, that first time.
My first day of Kindergarten was a shock. How do I breathe here in this world I have never known? Why does it take Mom so long to come get me again? What if I don't remember which turns take me back to my classroom?
I knew one boy already named Andrew but he wasn't at my table. The walls were covered in posters and I couldn't read yet. Was that OK? Or was I already behind?
I wondered if I had brought the right lunch. I was so proud of my Strawberry Shortcake lunch box and thermos but could the other kids tell it was bought at a yard sale? What if no one would play with me on the playground?
Eventually, I found friends and grew to love kindergarten but first grade was new all over again. For first grade, I had not just changed schools but also countries. I started first grade at St. Anne's Catholic school in Brussels, Belgium. I really felt I couldn't breathe there! None of the other children spoke English and I didn't know French! My teacher knew a few words of English but I really wanted to speak to the other kids at recess.
St. Anne's was Catholic so there were different rituals, crossing ourselves as we sung a prayer before lunch for example, that I didn't know how to do. Desperate to fit in, I copied the other children but felt painfully obvious of being one move behind the others.
Second grade meant a new country but this time at home. Home this time, however, meant a home in Africa. How do I breathe when, yet again, I did not know the language? Home-schooling was isolating too, as all the other white children my age were sent away to boarding school. I met one African girl, Bebe, who knew some French and she taught me some of the local dialect(which was called Lingala.) I often wonder how Bebe's life turned out after our trails diverged. Does she remember me?
Every trail we face is different. The texture of each path is different. Some paths are muddy, some are dry sand. Some trails we remember for the isolation and some for the people we met on our journey. Every trail is a new adventure. Often I feel I just can't face more change but I have found, if I will pause and breathe, usually I can gather the strength to plod on.
When I first went to physical therapy at 18, the pain was tremendous. How can I continue the repetitions? They wanted me to do how many? Were they serious?
"Breathe," my therapist, Heather, said. "You can do this but you can't if you don't breathe." I passed out one day, right there by the pool after water therapy. After I woke and she saw I was OK, Heather scolded me. "See, what have I told you. To stay aware, to keep from falling, you must breathe!"
I remember, years later, wondering, "Now that I started this parenting trail, how do I breathe? How can I promise to protect my son from all the dangers in this world?" This trail seemed full of dangers: his circumcision might become infected, he might catch RSV, he might roll off the changing table to the floor. So much responsibility, a new life in my arms, how do I breathe? I was ready but not ready. My husband had lost his job just a month before my son was born. With uncertainty and little money, how do I breathe? And yet I did. I breathed for him. As long as I could breathe, I could keep him safe, or at least try to. I needed a clear head to counter my full heart.
Breathing seems so simple and yet sometimes so hard to do. During my third pregnancy, when I learned the baby within me had died, I cried so hard I just ... I couldn't breathe. I couldn't stop my grief enough but self-preservation took over, even when I did not care. A ragged breath in, out. But even if I stopped breathing, nothing could make my baby breathe. He would never feel that life-giving wind. I left him by the trail and somehow, in time, walked away. There are no graves for miscarriages but his loss is close and never quite forgotten.
Breathing is a choice. Mostly involuntary, we will all have times when we can't breathe ... or don't want to. I've traveled many trails, some very unwillingly. But, no matter what we face, we must draw the wind of life inside our lungs. In, out. In, out.
We do not know where our current trail ends or what dangers we will meet along the way. But, forgetting the sorrows of the past, we must remember our infancy ... and breathe.
