Breathing

My friend and I met for coffee on Sunday morning in a crowded shop in the West Village. Soundtrack: Nick Drake, the clatter of dishes, the din of conversation. My friend had endured a great loss in this year, but she spoke about it calmly. “I was with her at the moment she died,” she told me. “I had placed my hand upon her mouth to see if she was breathing, and I literally felt her last breath. It was just a puff, right into my palm. Just a little puff of air.”

We stepped outside and were startled by the cold. It seemed that winter had suddenly arrived, and the only way to walk was to hurry along, and so my friend and I went our separate ways. I buttoned the top buttons of my coat, wrapped my scarf more tightly around my neck, and saw my own frosty breath in front of me as I headed back towards the apartment where Monte and I were staying.

There were Christmas trees for sale on the corner. I closed my eyes and inhaled their evergreen fragrance, imagining snowy mountains, sleigh rides and carolers, midnights clear. I had been kvetching all week about the intrusion of pseudo-Christmas everywhere, the insincere strains of Yuletide muzak, the relentless push to spend money. But the smell of Christmas trees revived something pure and hopeful in me; it felt good to pause among them. I breathed deeply, and I sighed.

The day before, Monte and I had disembarked from a subway train and bypassed a crowded escalator, choosing to climb a mountain of stairs up to the street. There were stairs, then more stairs, and we strode up briskly, flight after flight, a bit of the old competitiveness kicking in, an exhausting acceleration to the top. My heart was pounding by the time I reached the sidewalk, and I gulped the cold air, and felt pleased with myself for no reason.

We had come to New York to see our daughter, who was traveling there from England, and that would be our Christmas. I had been worried about it, though: How are they affording this? What are her plans and her purpose? Where will she be staying? Only days before her scheduled departure, I’d seen tweets from her and her boyfriend, asking whether anyone had a place in New York where they could crash. I fretted about it stupidly and offered unwelcome advice. This was before I understood how little of my daughter’s life was mine to orchestrate.

And someone did have a place for them –– a rather nice place, as it turns out, in hipster Brooklyn, and the plans unfolded as they went along, and it all seemed satisfactory. I had forgotten an important fact: the young live in another world. They have their own language, their own code, their own methodologies. They breathe a different air.

As for my daughter? She looked beautiful and happy.

Step back, let go, exhale, said the universe.

Fifteen years went by.

My daughter and her boyfriend have since gotten married, and they are parents now, leading busy, adult lives in England. We see them far less than we want to, but our California days fill up, and by and large we manage. We travel to England as often as we can, and we have learned to live with the longing in between.

Now another Christmas is drawing near, and we have no reason to decorate or put up a tree. It doesn’t matter. The toyon in front of the house has exploded with bright red berries, and the prism in the kitchen window is casting rainbows on the walls, and the moon last night shone brightly through snowdrifts of cloud. The orange trees are heavy with fruit, a snowfall of feathery white blossoms is accumulating beneath the manzanita, and there’s a stack of good books on my nightstand waiting to be read. Now and then we awake to a wintry white-out of fog. Nobody feels festive these days, but we know we have enough, and we are thankful. I will never get over the miracle of being here, the gift of bearing witness, the sufficiency of our lives.

I’ve been thinking lately about the concept of "enough” as we observe the rise of those unable to grasp it, of those whose driving credo is “more”––the craven, insatiable hunger for power and wealth that seems to have usurped all vestiges of decency and principle. When will the pendulum swing back? How much has already been ruined or lost irrevocably? It feels like everything we believe in is being trashed.

And at times, I can’t get enough, either…but of air. I think it’s called dyspnea, and it’s associated with anxiety. I yawn and gulp, but my lungs will not fill. It happens in the night, possibly related to current political developments, but maybe a result of my tendency to lie in bed reviewing my life, replaying regrets and worrying about things to come. Fortunately, after a few false starts, I manage to inhale, breathing deeply, quenched and grateful. But as you can see, I don’t take anything for granted, not even respiration.

For so many of us, our gratitude and joy coexist with anxiety and sadness. We cannot entirely tune out the disturbing news and terrible inequities, nor should we. One of my friends tells me that feelings of grief and outrage manifest in her gut, causing stomach discomfort. She is a practitioner of yoga, and finds solace in deep breathing, the very practice that eludes me. But although I haven’t learned the knack of that, I do have other tricks. The remedy usually begins with a walk outside.

Today as I wandered along a familiar dirt road leading to the sea, a current of cool air caressed my face, and it was ineffably delicious just to be alive and conscious. Sometimes all it takes is a breeze upon the skin. When I reached the edge of the land, I stood in the silvery light and watched the ocean in one of its rambunctious moods, splashing and spraying against the rocks, big waves pounding. A portal of pale blue opened in the clouds. The earth and I breathed in unison.

Step back, let go, exhale, said the universe. Have you forgotten already?