Just Breathe

I used to take breathing for granted. As a child I remember my mom wheezing and sneezing on hazy summer days, heard her say "hay fever" but went on my way, not understanding enough to know I should feel bad for her. Not understanding nearly enough to know I should be grateful it wasn't me.

I breathed in the hot dust of our country lives, reveled in the coolness of the damp and moldy leaf carpeted woods. Only the wind, whipping by as I tried to outrun it on my motorcycle, or the greatest of kisses - only those could steal my breath away. Holding the longest long note, marching across halftime, playing and moving and playing until bright stars came into my vision and I had to concede to breathe for a split second before doing it again. These were challenges worthy of my bottomless breath.

And then I moved away. Away from the clear country air and the bright smells of cows and corn. Into a collegiate cloud of bar smoke and dumpsters and dryer lint and where did the clean air go? Then I started to wheeze. And to cough and to sneeze. My mom said "hay fever." But when the fevers came the doctor said bronchitis. I endured endlessly sick lungs for months, was never the same again.

Then the things I loved were just a little bit harder. Not noticeable, nothing to force a conscious evaluation. It creeped insidiously into my life, forced me to adjust without admitting to the adjustment. But I didn't hold the notes quite as long, or wait for quite as many measures for the next breath.

And then I moved again. To a place of never-ending cars and concrete and buildings. A place where there is no escape from the city-smell, and the oppressive air weighed heavy on my lungs. A place where I lost all will to be outside, for as far as I was concerned they had killed the outside I wanted to be in. Concrete paths perfumed with exhaust are a poor substitute for the open country roads of my youth.

So it got worse. And my health declined, and the weight piled on, and then the allergies came. Slowly at first, gradually, until I was living every day in a sneezy, itchy, Kleenex hell.

Now I wake every day to ask: can I breath today? How bad is it? Just a little stuffy - I can bike, I can run. Breathing through my nose? Better get into the water while it lasts. Swimming! How I've always loved to be in the water. I never would have guessed, turning underwater somersaults as a child, that my biggest aquatic challenge would become the simple act of exhaling through my nose.

So I take my shots and keep a supply of pills and the occasional inhaler and live every day checking pollen and mold counts, avoiding the grocery store detergent aisles, checking the forcast for windy days. I live a life of constant vigilance because I can't breathe any more. At least not the way the rest of the world understands what it is to breathe.

When we cease to breathe we cease to live; this is both biological fact and existential nightmare. My dwindling breath was stealing my life away, one joy at a time. But no longer. It's not a battle I can win; but it is an endurable seige. As long as I can maintain my defenses I can keep doing the things I have come to love. Like swimming. And biking. And running.

So, pass the Kleenex. I've races to train for.