Omer. Day 24

I write a lot about breath.I am made breathless, I say. Breathe, I remind myself. I am a creature of metaphor, I guess.

And this - not sure if it's partial metaphor or maybe mostly concrete, but I was taught, along about the time I started writing about breath, that that very breath that moves me and lifts me and separates me (even as it connects me) from (to) you, is, in fact, the truest pronunciation of the name of God.

I like to think that every breath I take is a prayer, a hymn made up of God's very name.

Truth be told, I love that idea.

So you will understand how odd it is that I sit here in the hospital, breathing with no small amount of difficulty. I have asthma. It's not the wheezy kind; I cough. Not just a delicate, puffed "ahem," but a full-on,scare the little kiddies (and myself), hacking, gasping, will-she-make-it kind of cough.

I wonder, if my breath is the name of God, when I struggle to take the next one, when I can't take the next one, have I lost God in that moment? Is that the physical manifestation of my struggle with God, a counterpoint to my metaphoric wrestling match with the Divine? Maybe.

But you know, when I can finally take in the breath that has eluded me, a great, gawping whoosh of air - oh, there is benediction in that, truer and more pure than any prayer I have ever offered.

And with that one great breath, I am filled.

Holding in the Name of God

There is a moment
(there is always a moment)
a moment of my breath
taken in great
huge -
   not sobs,
   not gasps -
though it has been that
(surely has been that!)
often has been that,
this breathing of mine;
but this breathing of mine
is not that.

It is wholly,
Completely
Different.

Not gentle,
this breath, but
Full -
Full as life, and
Out to the edges
of me, the wholeness of me
and beyond, just beyond:
full, and just fuller still,
Not gentle -
but full and
still.

And I held it there,
this breath -
this expanding
expansive
outward
inward
held
breath,

Held it for a moment
that was eternal
an infinite moment
of holding  breath -

Only to exhale.
Not gentle,
but out to the edges
and full -
an exhale of
suddenness,
of a moment,
endless and still,
and I was -
in that space of infinite
beginning and endless ending
Complete.

The Magnetic Attraction of Hope

So you try, even now;
You hope, eyes closed
breath held,
to hold absolutely still,
willing the universe
to somehow overlook you
and pass you by.

Except hope,
you find, too late,
is a magnet,
obeying strict laws of attraction -
the laws that move stars
and iron
and hearts -
it pulls and teases and
grasps everything in its path.
And all those things,
those flurried, fluid things,
they race along the trajectory
of your hope,
flowing at the speed of
your guilt and need,
faster than light,
to leap and cling and
be carried by your longing.

Hope is a trap of magnetic attraction.

But you do it anyway -
inhale and hold on
for dear life,
riding that wave of
your own giddy desire.

Just like hope,
you hold on.
In your stillness,
in your fear.
You hold on.

And God!
You can feel it -
the air, trapped in your lungs,
fluttering wildly,
desperate for release.
You feel its wings like a raven's,
beating madly in your chest.
You feel its wings like a dove's,
frantic -
frenzied -
and you hold on,
tight and grasping,
to keep the all and the everything
close, keep them near -
all those bright and shiny Things
that you have captured,
captivated by their glimmer.
They name you
and claim you.
They have their own laws
of attraction, like stars
and iron
and hearts.
And you are caught and kept
as they are caught
and kept,
caged.

And your wings
beat against the walls
of your chest so madly,
so weary,
and spent,
but still they beat.

And all you need do
to calm those wings
that catch
and clutch
and beat,
that long for
release
in hopeless,
helpless abandon

is breathe.

Waiting for Almost

The ancient Celts had the right idea: it is in the in-between that magic lives. Dawn, not daylight; dusk, not night. Really. Who would have felt the enchantment of Brigadoon if it lay under the bright golden summer blue sky? It was the very fact that it lay shrouded in fog and mist that we could believe in the magic of that place. There is an expectancy, an urgency that goes with that in between and almost time.

In between is all about possibility. It is the infinite and unknown. It is Schroedinger's Cat living large. Or perhaps dead. Or both together. It is where God lives, in the space that exsists between me and you. It is magic and mystery and enchantment.

I am fascinated by the in between, by the infinite.

I just wish I could do them, fit in that space. I have an impossibly difficult time with it. While I sense the majesty and magic, can feel the Almost gather its shape, I feel all lopsided and clumsy and wonky. I do not know how to respond. What I crave is knowing what will happen next. I want the rules, dammit. I want to know what's expected of me. Don't make me guess. I do not know how to relax. I cannot sit comfortably in the dynamic tension of in betweens. I feel it much like a cat or dog feels the tension of a coming earthquake: disaster is just around the corner and I want to bolt before it hits.

And right now, my life feels ruled by the twin novae of In Between and Almost.

It is uncertain and twisty, the path that lies at my feet. There is hidden quicksand, I am sure of it. I cannot see all the traps; there are shadows and menace and probable monsters. There is endless despair and eternal night. It gets worse. I crawl inside my head to escape this uncertainty and the tensions magnify.

My skin buzzes, my foot jiggles, my thoughts skitter, making up the eleventy seven thousand stories that go along with "what if..." In the absence of information, I make stuff up, and it’s never the make believe of happily-ever-after. In my stories, the evil wizard triumphs over good, the dragon eats the princess and the hero gets lost in the woods. And that's the beginning of the story; the end is not nearly so upbeat.

But here's the thing: even in the midst of my almost panic, I remember a grace note of something else, something that may almost be hope. There is this poised expectancy, like the ghostly breath of God that hovers over a field of grass at dawn, waiting for a single breath to give it shape and movement. That is my life: poised, motionless, waiting for a single breath to give it shape. And my instincts scream: run!

But I don't. I don't run. I stay, waiting, skin crawling, watching and waiting for what happens next. It can drive friends and lovers mad. I, myself, am an in between and an almost. I am neither here nor there. I flit and twirl and dance along a razor sharp path to get over the endless chasm of almost.

Relax. Let go. Let be. Just be. Wait.

Do they all not understand, even now, what I wouldn't give to be able to sit in comfort and quiet in the magic of that in between? Do they not know how glorious it would be to breathe and just be?

And I can almost get it. I can almost find that place, poised so exquisitely between the infinite and the possible. And that is the whisper of hope. I am almost, I am in between, and I can breathe. Just breathe. And the wonkiness, the twisty anxiety, they give way, with infinite slowness, to the beauty of almost and in between. And I can sit still, and wait, and go slow: for a moment, a breath, a day, some finite time where I don't have to know.

It is where God exists. It is where love resides and hope is born. It is redemption and grace. It is the place of my heart. Even in my fear, even in my panic and uncertainty, I am given these gifts. And I find peace.