Its invisibility surrounds us always. Margaret Attwood wrote I want to be the air that inhabits you for the moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary. That unnoticed – that necessary.
Every day is spent in that action. The rise and fall of my chest and belly. Yes, my singing teacher taught me to breathe from my belly, my diaphragm. I think it me round, like some tenor in the opera. But I take in large air, big air – it is that necessary. I take it for granted, the daily, minutely, secondly breathing in and out. Most of the time it is unnoticed.
Once, while doing a survival training course I had to crawl through a concrete pipe from one end while someone else came through from the other way. We prepared to help one another pass through the middle, where our two bodies would be pressed by the confines of the pipe. Quarters were tight. Our belt buckles snagged, and he was squashed on top of me. There was only room to use toes and butts and slight hand grips to unhook the buckles and squeeze past. I wanted to scream; get this asshole off me I can’t get enough air. But we marshaled through. That first breath at the other opening was air sweeter than I had tasted before. That breath was conscious within the millions of unconscious ones – 16 per minute, 960 per hour, 23,040 a day; 8,409,600 a year; 622 million so far in my life – most so unnoticed, yet so necessary.
Air fills our lungs so we can tell someone we love them. When we are angry children, it empties as we scream I hate you at our parents or siblings, It quivers inside during our first real kiss trying to figure out how to trade tongues and breath at the same time. How many times do we check it in the cup of our hand before saying hello to someone at a party. How often is it a gasp when we hear of the slaughter of children or see a terrible accident. It is racked as we cry over the death of a parent, a loved one, or that precious pet whose life was given to us and now it is time to say goodbye – so unnoticed, so necessary.
We consume it in gulps when the morning is fresh after rain and it is sweet to taste, damp on our faces. It is crisp as we watch the crash of Pacific waves on the rocks in the aftermath of a storm just blown through; the sky still grey but the deluge subsided. We are grateful for air still crackling with the spark of lightning, now done. Unnoticed and necessary.
I remember the first breath of my child, born early into the world. Not a cry but a quick breath through blue lips that brought color to her cheeks. That first breath has given us thirty years of followed joys. It has built a life that is part ours and yet beautifully distinct. That breath noticed and necessary.
Now, I wonder how many I have left. I know they come and go and can’t go on forever. I know life has duration. I have seen its beginnings. I have seen its ends – my mother near ninety shriveled and small. My father on my family room floor, lips blue as I tried to make my air supplant his lack to no avail, his light going out – air being so necessary. I have seen it wasted in angry exchanges between people who share the same air but not the same ideas. I have heard it cheer performances and boo politicians. I have tasted it smoky from California fires or savory from great grilling.
It is intertwined with every expression of love I have shared in my life – those lost, those still present. She wrote I want to be the air that inhabits you. I say take me in. Envelope me. Enfold me in your lungs, all that it savory and sweet and bitter and fresh and temporary. Like breath I am not here forever, nor are you. Noticed and oh so necessary.