“Breathe in, breathe out,
Breathe in, breathe out,
Breathe in…”
In April 1997, the British rock band, Bush, wailed these lyrics of their song, “Machinehead,” at the Dane County Coliseum in Madison, Wisconsin, and I was there to hear it. Two weeks earlier, the historic Red River flood had washed Husband and me out of our apartment in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and into drier territory in Minnesota first, then on into Wisconsin to attend the concert with our friends who lived there.
The previous evening, we sat on benches, gazing out at Wisconsin’s Lake Mendota through dusk’s filtered light. I commented on the volume of water sprawling before us.
“Too soon?” my friend asked, and I laughed, recalling the watery devastation we had just escaped.
All of those recollections—disjointed as they are—form into music, and I hear Bush’s song today in my mind like it wasn’t so long ago. And what a strange song to remind me of nature and all that’s in it—the give and take, the in and out, the great exchange of breath in our bodies that shows we’re still alive.
Memories of a trip to the ocean lap at my feet now, proof that the massive body of water breathes too. The flood current came in, slamming my shins—and more of me. Soon, though, it pulled away as the ebb current rushed out, exposing my toes. Inhale, exhale.
As we reclined on warm stony slabs at Joshua Tree National Park years ago, the rocks under and around us inhaled and exhaled as we waited together for the sun to set in the desert. People say rocks don’t breathe, but the truth stands: if we stay silent, they’ll surely cry out.
My house plants breathe, refreshing the atmosphere for us, and Husband’s chest rises and falls next to me as I write this in bed late on Wednesday night. The Divine breath flows in and out too, and I feel His presence even now. He exhaled the universe into being and life into flesh. And He inhales, pulling us closer to Him in this life, and at the end of our time, out of this world again.
You have today to move in the give and take, in the breathing in and out, in the inhaling and exhaling.
Live.
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*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.