Now that we are entering the next phase of the pandemic, I have been searching for the best filters for the cloth masks I wear whenever I leave my apartment. To further protect others from my exhalations in this time of COVID surge (and perhaps myself, too) I decided upon simple tissues, folded double and inserted into the mask’s pocket. A Stanford scientist whose recommendation I trust said this accessible, thrifty option would work just fine, preventing my breath from escaping at the edges and providing further filtration of any particles spewed in my direction. Good enough.
It is still unnerving to think of my breath, my life force, as a biological weapon. After years of yoga and meditation, I have trained my body to breathe rhythmically, in long, slow, deep inhales and matching exhales. “Feel the breath,” my teachers regularly intoned in “the before times” when a roomful of yogis flowed in a moving meditation, breathing audibly and in unison.
The premise was that as long as we remembered that breath connects us, not just to our own ability to survive, but to the shared air that all living beings need, we could cultivate a different sense of time, one measured in breath increments rather than minutes or hours or years. We could be present, sensing more acutely what was happening around us. We could cultivate compassion, experience greater aliveness.
A few years back Goi, my massage therapist, asked me to take one breath in and one breath out as I settled onto the table, face down, my head cradled in a cushioned ring open in the center. I was a bit puzzled by his request, but as this was my first time with him, I complied, taking in air through my nose, filling my belly to low ribs to shoulder blades to back of throat, then expelling it in reverse order as I had been trained to do.
“You do yoga,” he said.
“Why yes. How did you know?”
I secretly hoped his answer would confirm that my toned arms peeking out from the sheet had given me away. Vanity thy name is yogini!
“Your breath is long and beautiful. Please continue,” he replied.
I was determined to keep the rhythm of breath at this pace throughout the ninety-minute session out of pride if nothing more. Getting past my competitive spirit has always been a struggle.
At first all that I sensed was his breathing and my breathing flowing in harmony. It reminded me of the beauty of schools of fish darting and turning as one, or flocks of geese flapping their wings in perfect time. When I lived in my farmhouse on the Potomac River, I was privileged to see the majestic birds in vee formation each morning as they commuted from their riverside nests to points west, only to return at dusk in exactly the same arrangement, this time pointing east.
After a while as Goi pounded into my knotted shoulders and tense neck, my mind wandered, my yoga breathing carrying me inward to a space awash with colors, swirling in time, yet primal in its simplicity. As my muscles relaxed and the almond scent of the massage oil seeped into my nostrils, I was transported into a timeless vortex.
I remembered how during the fever dreams that accompanied my childhood bouts of tonsillitis my bedroom used to feel as if it was breathing around me. I remembered the way we kids would pretend to be smoking as we exhaled frosty breath during winter sledding. I remembered the ache of deep breaths tearing at my lungs after sprinting down the lacrosse field past defenders, racing to fling the ball into the goal.
I remembered gasping for breath after escaping from a rapist in Paris, cursing myself for having been stupid enough to get into such a situation. I remembered holding my breath until purple in the face while trying to obey the obstetrician’s command not to push just yet. I remembered being breathless as I stood in the malachite room of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, marveling at its floor-to-ceiling splendor.
And then I remembered fighting for breath when one dark, starless night (soon after I had exiled my wayward husband) one lens fell out of my glasses into the deep grass. “I can’t do all this alone” I sobbed, gasping as I crawled on hands and knees searching for it. Both of my dogs, alarmed, put their noses next to mine, one on each side, then licked my face. “You are not alone,” said their warm breath.
To be aware of the pattern of breath in another living being is to share intimacy. The snorts and guzzles of a nursing newborn on my breast, the feel of my partner’s chest rising and falling during lovemaking, the wheezing sound emitted by my fifteen-year-old terrier as he slept below my bed, the collective whooshing of a roomful of yogis practicing ujjayi pranayama: each is in its own way an aural reminder that we live — and die– as beings dependent not just upon the air but upon each other. Sharing breath means acknowledging a deep, spiritual connection.
“Thank you very much, I hope you enjoy” said Goi at the end of my massage.
Startled out of my reverie, I realized that the ninety minutes had drifted away, just as my thoughts had. His words broke the unison of our breath. Our connection became attenuated; the intimacy was gone. It was time to dress, time to place his tip in the waiting envelope, time to go out into the cold. I felt a touch of sadness, a smidgeon of loss, a bit of insecurity as I left the warmth of the massage room.
I see those feelings now as foreshadowing, as preparation. It has been nine months of social distance, of containing my breath, of fearing the breath of others. COVID has made us more aware of our co-dependency, but it has at the same time made sharing the breath of strangers, or even loved ones, a deadly intimacy.
We mask our faces to prevent comingling, and in the process, we shield ourselves not just from the virus, but from the spiritual connection that breathing the same air makes us feel if we are truly present, truly in community with those around us. Perhaps that is why after so many months of compliance, some of us are feeling COVID fatigue, loneliness, even depression.
But here I am, still inhaling, still exhaling, still experiencing the reverie that comes with conscious observance of my lungs filling, then emptying. “Where there is breath there is life,” my grandmother used to say. I think of the 300,000 who have struggled for air, lain in hospital alone and in distress, without the soft nuzzle of a dog’s wet nose or the whispered terms of endearment of a spouse, a child, a sibling, a beloved friend.
The intimacy of live beings sharing the atmosphere is replaced in such circumstances by the hiss and sigh of the ventilator as it pushes oxygen into a comatose body. I hold these souls, the exhausted space-suited caregivers of the sick and dying and all who have lost someone in my heart. Sitting on my mat, eyes closed, hands in prayer, I look forward to the day when my long, slow breaths can be shared with strangers in an affirmation of life, once again.
THE MEMOIR LIFE 
Gorgeous, thank you. Breathing is always with us, always a possibility of focus to return to the still center of being. I agree that not sharing breath is a necessary starvation for now and look forward to the return of sharing breath and touch in safety. The cocoon that the world has been wrapped up in will slowly open and we can use the space to unfurl our new wings. May I also treasure the still time within as I liquify in preparation for my own fragile wings to emerge in the possibility of healing and unity.
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Yes! We are in preparation for our next unfolding. Be well 💕
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So lovely and thoughtful. I really felt this, “Getting past my competitive spirit has always been a struggle.” I have the same problem. I really want to be noticed (and receive accolades!) for certain things that I don’t think anyone even notices. It’s been a big lesson to me that I’m just not that big a deal in anyone’s world but mine.
I appreciate yoga very much, but I have never been a consistent practicer. I had a lovely routine but lost it somewhere and can’t remember it complimented the activities that engage the deep places in my mind and heart and I loved it.
For the last week I’ve struggled with the second migraine in two weeks. Today I finally got out in the snowy world (it’s been too bright) and all the loneliness and mild-depression I’ve felt weighing me down vanished in the mysterious welcome of my valley. I was walking along thinking, “Wow. It’s going to be a strange and lonely Christmas.” Then I felt my valley say, “Spend it with us.” I looked around at the silvery sky, the hundreds of ducks on the frozen pond, the hawk circling higher and higher, the bare winter trees, the tracks in the snow and it occurred to me that that place has held me up during all these strange months and has become my “family.” I felt so loved and told it I would be honored to spend Christmas there. ❤
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Oh my goodness Martha. I’ve been struggling with headache for what seems like weeks, and I totally understand the issue with the sun on the snow. I think the root cause of mine is a tight muscle in my neck. I need that massage therapist I wrote about! Have you tried keeping a food diary? That always helps me to figure out what is going on with my migraines (if they are not caused by things like a strained neck, alas).
The natural world is so important to me. Even though I live in NYC I am within sight and sound of the Hudson River and the miles long greenway called Riverside Park. And of course Central Park is a few blocks away.
You write so movingly about your “family” and I am sure that your Christmas with the ducks and hawk and trees will lift your spirits. Namaste.
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All it takes is a river and a little green. We don’t have to have the Yukon. I have thought about wheat — for a while I was avoiding it and I’ve decided to return to that and see if it helps, but I think it’s Trump, frankly. The migraines seem to coincide with some new drama he’s throwing up I mean throwing out.
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I’ve wondered about that too. It’s the tension that is so hard to escape.
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I don’t “mind” the virus other than it’s deadliness. I can stay away from it, but Trump? It’s ubiquitous and contagious evil that affects my country. I feel sad and angry and without recourse to change anything. Definitely a nightmare…or the stuff of migraines.
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YES.
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I’ve been thinking about Covid’s impact on breath all day. Torqued chest muscles make deep breaths uncomfortable and have pushed me towards coughing spasms. It must be a terribly scary way to die. Where did you live on the Potomac (curious as a DC native).
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I thought about that as I read your latest post. For almost thirty years I lived in Great Falls, adjacent to the park, just near the falls. It was heaven. But after I retired, and long after both daughters had decamped, it was time to move back to NYC where I was born and went to college and worked before graduate school. One grand baby is here, but more importantly, I felt isolated after I stopped working. The respite of coming home to a serene little corner of the DC world was tempered by the lack of stimulation. Living in NYC is a coming home of sorts … and a wonderful place to quickly and easily connect with like-minded individuals. I exchanged the Potomac River for the Hudson River, Great Falls Park for Riverside Park, the place I raised my kids to the place I was born.
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I read your post and the comments slowly to digest the compelling perspectives new to me. How profound that something as good and intrinsically beautiful as our breathing can be a dangerous “biological weapon.” The contrast is similar to the wonderful concept of free speech being abused in hateful ways.
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Thank you for this. And yes, 2020 has shown us the underbelly of many things we have taken for granted, free speech being a good example.
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Wow…such a thought-provoking post!
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Thank you 🙏🏻
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You’re very welcome!
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This eloquent post calmed me, reminded me to breathe deeply and enjoy its benefits, so thank you.
I’ve recently been doing yoga at home again, after several years off, and that has helped me focus on relaxation and breathing during these stressful, chaotic times.
It’s distressing to have to consider that the exhalations of others, and myself, are potentially life-threatening, something to be avoided at all costs. I’m grateful that I at least don’t have to worry about the (often stinky) exhalations of my dogs, whose own calm breathing as they lay beside me on my bed relaxes me.
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Viruses must love yoga. The long, deep breaths of contagion. I prefer to share my breath with dogs. COVID or no COVID.
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I’ve been spending this morning catching up on your posts, Trish, and wow, this one left me nearly breathless. I, too, wonder how this pandemic has changed how we interact with each other. I hope that when it’s over, we can find a way to move past the now-ingrained caution of the past year and re-learn how to embrace intimacy (and for some of us learn true intimacy) with others again.
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Thank you Marsha. It’s been interesting to see how hiding behind my mask has changed me, as well…I think we will all have much to reflect upon as the pandemic (we hope!) ebbs.
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