There are so many ways to breathe. Belly breathing, alternate nostril breathing, four-count breathing, progressive muscle relaxation breathing, ocean breath, 4-7-8 breathing...all meant to calm, soothe, and restore. They exist to affirm life.
She sat on her pillow, looking out the window of her cabin at the rain falling. Her breathing wasn’t intentional. It just was. Involuntary and life-sustaining. A tear ran down her cheek. Alone. She was breathing alone.
By all accounts, she should be content. Calm. At peace. She’d done all the exercises she’d been told to do. Prior to her departure from the city, she’d made it a point to buy ice cream from the man in the truck. She’d gone out with friends and seen a fabulously bawdy sex show. She’d eaten a messy hot dog at a ball game. She’d been blissfully indulgent.
Once everything had been crossed off the list, she did as she was told and slipped away to this cabin. This secret place. It was her time to “find herself.” No electronics. No other people. Just her and breath.
And so she sat, wrapped in blankets (there were never enough blankets). The air around her smelled of earl gray tea and crackling fire. The scent of damp earth seeped in through the walls. There were no pets to hold. There were no pests to befriend.
She hated all the noise her breath made. Alone was too loud. Alone took her otherwise ordinary thoughts and increased their size exponentially. Her thoughts were emphasized in bold print and underlined.
But, thoughts aren’t things. She knew that. Years of therapy had hammered that concept home. Despite rationality, though, her ugly thoughts boomed. Her soul shook.
Deep breath in. Hold for four. She hiccuped, then choked, then sobbed. She couldn’t even breathe right. Perfect environment. Perfect serenity. Perfect opportunity. Yet still, she could not.
Standing, still wrapped in blankets, she shuffled to the fire and splashed some water from a bucket onto the flames, hissing them into silence. She set down the bucket with a clunk and made her way to the stove, where she removed the teapot from the heat and tightened the knobs on the sink to ensure there would be no dripping.
Returning to the pillow, she put her hands over her ears and looked again out the window at the water droplets falling from the sky. She wanted to dig her nails into her brain and scratch out all the words. Still too much noise. She tried to mute her breathing and found she could not. She could not. She could not.
Her body, depleted, gave up trying. She felt her mouth open, and experienced a deep intake of air. Suddenly removed, she saw herself from a distance, phantom eyes bulging as she watched her self - heard her self - felt her self - begin to scream. Her body shrieked and contorted. Its vocal cords burned. The sounds escaping were feral and uninhibited. While disassociated, looking down at it all, she noticed the strangest thing. The noise was gone. In this rabid cacophony, she had discovered her quiet. It made no sense.
Loudly (of course), she breathed a sigh of relief and rejoined her form. Wrapped in her blankets, she scooched around and got more comfortable. Again her mouth opened, and in both defeat and triumph, her lungs exploded and she screamed again. Alone.
©2020 by Kat Atwell. All rights reserved.