Catch Your Breath

-Hang out with me!

 He begged. In that annoying high pitched voice, because he read right through my reluctant stance.

--Oh but it is so hard to do that when it hurts to be with you!

-Come on! Hang out with me!

--I don’t want to be here, not today, not right now, can we reschedule? I can just get up and leave. Sorry if it’s rude, it’s just not working out for me.

-You’ve hung out with me so many times before… even when I’ve made you cry.

--Well, yes, yes, I have, but right now it is too painful to be here. I’m not even talking emotionally painful; forget that, that would be nice. It is physically painful to be with you. I just want to leave.

-If you leave, you come right back; in ragged, torn and uneven shallowness. It really takes you nowhere. Why don’t you just listen, take a slower breath. Just a tad, just a little.

--It’s too hard. Can we reschedule? Maybe this was not a great idea. Maybe we should not have met today.

-Just give it a chance, slowly, and open up. Haaaaaannnnngggg out. Say it slow. Say it on the inhale; then you’re home. Work through the anxiety. Hang out please.

The pain doesn’t go away. Not at all. Not today. But I hang out, and it gets a little easier with every slow breath.

New soreness all over from bodywork, adjustments and a self-inflicted ass kicking is threated through my back. Forward bend and pigeon instantly became my mortal enemies, until that Small victory, a minor recession and it dulls. The more I pull away from it, the more it lulls. Me away.

I give.

I am now coming out of a bright  mighty ocean threaded with white strings, I free myself and I sit on the beach to contemplate from far away, following his voice, he sits next to me. I watch the waters expand, and roar and settle down, just a tad. Bright and mighty; tranquil and unperturbed at once.

--I didn’t want to hang out. I wished you cared, Breath, but you don’t give a shit. You are the most insensitive to my selfish stride. Even my ego cares more!

-duh!, you have the nerve to say.

--Ha.  I’ve given you the confidence to be relentless, to keep on edging on when I rather you hang back and frankly, let me leave. I can’t unknow you. I can ignore you, but now it’s hard when I know the climax of release and peace you bring.

--You’ve become the silent voice in the back of my head. Great.

Breath looked a bit sad at that.

--Wait, I mean that. Great! Thank You Breath.

-- We hung out today, I pouted and threw a tantrum and you just held me steady, so I could bend.

--You didn’t take my struggle personally.

--You showed me how to expand and show you new and old places alike.

--We made more room for what’s good for me and my soul.

--Besides the mat and the floor, thank you for letting me catch you when I fall.

If I Died Today.

If I Died Today

I would be happy and I hope you would too. If died today I would leave this world content. I don’t have my shit together, not at all. I am in between as usual. I am working towards, as always. But if I died today my bases are covered: The kids know I love them, I tell them so much every single day that they repeat it with the drawn out kid-speak of “we know, you love us” or the usual sigh when I say “guess what?!” Only to be followed by another 100^th bout of I love you for the day if they don’t fill it in first. I hug them enough. I kiss them enough.

 So if I died today I know I gave them all my love, every chance I got. Maybe I didn’t get to spend all the time I would with them. Maybe I was being a mom and “being mean.” But love?; that I gave enough of. If I died today what they remember should be good, so I’d be happy. The rest is irrelevant when I am dead. Will they forget? What will I miss? If anything I’ve seen is the universe will work it all out with the imprint you leave, or without.

If I died today I would be happy and I hope you would be too. If I died today I would leave this world at peace. I know my family knows I live my life to the best and the fullest every day. I’ve quit my job and gone to yoga, I’ve gone out on Sunday nights and gone to woken up to work Monday mornings. So I hope they’d have no regrets and no words left unsaid, because I don’t. I hope they’d know I enjoyed my every day. I hope they’d have comfort in the fact that I missed out on nothing, and I put an exclamation at the end of always every day all the time and I always loved them even when I disagreed, or didn’t pick up my phone or told them it was easy not to give a crap about some people or somethings and drama and be happier that way.

If I died today I would be joyful and I hope you would be too. As my friends, I would hope you know I appreciated you. I saw you, I cherished you, I gave thanks for you and every crossing of our paths was moment that shaped me. You were all my teachers and life was better because of you.

If I died today I could only die happy as I feel because I know I did some good, today and yesterday, not to perfection, but to the best I could manage then. I made mistakes but I tried not to dwell and just to learn how to improve from there. If I died today I would die knowing I lived a purposeful life and lined my thoughts and actions with the stars. I laughed and danced and did dangerous things and safe things and took risks and loved and hurt and cried and mourned and learned and explored and worked hard and served and fell and laughed again. I took my breaths towards the sky and the light. I did yoga in the dark of the moon light. I held the fire both in my heart and in the palm of my hand. I shone my heart with fear and courage. I kept my feet on the hard solid earth where I am headed back, and it held me when I was unsteady and it will hold me when I am scattered ashes, when dead. 

If I died today I would want you to dance. I would ask you to close your eyes and feel your soul and let yourself go and hang, suspended, in the place where the world of body and the world of spirit meet; and smile. If when you open your eyes you take a breath just a little bit deeper or with a little more happiness, or you give an extra kiss, or flip someone off one less time on the road; then you honor me, and you honor yourself and everyone who has been here and left.

So make your own peace, pick your battles, take a nap and have some tea this afternoon. Talk to a friend, sing in the car or in the shower. Dance in the elevator. Smile to a stranger. Go to bed knowing you loved and made a difference in someone’s life. Thank for every day. Time here is fucking short and all I can hope for you is that if you died today, you would die happy too and you cuss a little today too. Every body should. 

If you died today I shall dance for you anyways, maybe have a little whisky too. Cheers! For what you brought to me and to those you loved and for all the good you were. Cheers for all your mistakes and for being free while you were here and now there, wherever or nowhere, who cares. I would celebrate, and then I’d take a deep breath and kiss mine more today.