An indrawn breath. What are the things that cause your eyes to widen, that are such a surprise, good or bad, that they literally take your breath away? There may not be many things that do that to you, but they do leave an impression. I have found it important to mark them.
Myself, I prefer the happy surprises. When that person you have been dreaming about every night pops the question, that can take your breath away. Perhaps even better, someone you never dreamed of appears before your eyes, sweeps you off your feet and whisks you to a place that never existed before. Your feet rise from the ground and, amazingly, you are bodiless, and it can go on and on, even for a lifetime! Eventually, you have to breathe again, but now you are in a new world, and things have changed forever. Am I raising your expectations too high? Why not ask for the moon? It happened to me.
How about when a new life is born. Then, suddenly, there is an indrawn breath, and a cry – the world has changed forever for all those concerned. And there will be many ups and downs. Try to enjoy the ups as much as you can!
I remember coming upon an iris in a garden, the colour was blue-black. It took my breath away. The beautiful delicacy of an orchid, its shape, colours – that does it for me every time. A piece of music can pierce me to the very core and set me weeping, so that I find it almost impossible to breathe. A summer day in a vineyard, the clouds advancing to attenuate the summer heat, the blush of air on my skin from a gentle breeze as I hide in the shade of a massive tree – I hold my breath and hug myself. When I stand with my fingers brushing the weathered stone of the ancient Wall in Jerusalem, I can feel the thrum of the centuries rumbling under my skin and my body shakes uncontrollably in resonance with the events I am heir to; I feel myself gasping for air, I am transported.
Let me take you into my confidence. I am intoxicated with life, totally drunk and out of my skull. The tsunami of sensory input coursing through the coruscations of my cortex from my eyes, ears, skin, not to mention my taste buds and my gut, have me in a constant state of arousal. And I haven’t even mentioned sex. I kid you not.
The tiny tiptoeing of an insect on my skin brings me to full alert. I wonder where it thinks it is going, what it sees, feels. Will it bite, just feed on my exfoliations, or is it exploring to find a friend? As it crawls across my arm, I contemplate the feel of my muscles when they propel me down the street. I sometimes am impelled to break into a run just to experience the pump of my heart and the puff of my lungs. What a rush to be alive!
Talk about taste and what it does to my senses: the sweet and bitter of wine, the acridity of a cigar, the shock of a shot of single malt, and that’s just the stuff designed to kill brain cells. What about salt and vinegar, spiced meats and garlic, onions and, a favourite, caraway seeds?
There is no bland for me. How about a rib steak, medium rare, seared so the exterior is caramelized, adding salad with a sharp vinaigrette? How about battered cod, with French fries and lots of ketchup? Does this sound like a sensible low-cal diet for an old fogey like me? Let’s not mention desserts, enjoyed in moderation even though I am diabetic. The sight of one in a French restaurant is sometimes enough to excite me to breathlessness. I haven’t mentioned that I love a tart apple pie.
I have experienced Yellowknife at 40-below, with a wind, and the desolate airport tarmac, in scenic Mauritania, at 45˚C, the juicy humidity (with body melting like ice cream) of the Congolese jungle and the aridity (feeling like a dried-up leaf) of Darfur. I know when I am fortunate in passing my time in a temperate climate. Just being in a pleasant place is something I can never take for granted.
And, for a bit of something else, I know what it is to try to survive in the hurley-burley of a chaotic business environment. I have learned to appreciate the joys of single-tasking after being in situations where I have felt like a 10-armed paperhanger, working against time. And more? Believe me, you would not necessarily enjoy seeing your name on the front page of a newspaper or your face on the TV news. Talk again about the indrawn breath.
But it is our human relationships that top it all for me. There is nothing like the right one, or the wrong one, to get us breathing like a steam engine, testing the resistant capacities of our vascular systems. It surely takes the cake for the height of experience. When your moment arrives, and you feel that sense of communion with another person, just smiling at each other across a small space, you feel the need to pinch yourself to prove that the instant is really real. I don’t know about you, but I have to take a really big breath to try and keep calm. I feel I could burst with the ecstasy of the experience, because I can remember the misery of those other so-lonely times. Oh, yes, I can.
Welcome to Life.
Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His book Hero in My Own Eyes: Tripping a Life Fantastic is available from Amazon and other online booksellers.