extremely aware of your breath? Inhaling and exhaling, it's so easy you never have to think about it. Until you do. And then it is impossible to catch it, it’s slipping away and you have to stop whatever you’re doing to just... breathe?
It astonishes me how many things our body does automatically, juggling a couple dozen processes at once, each of them more complex than most of the latest technology. You never even notice it.
At this moment I feel so much of it. My heart, pumping the blood through my veins in a hopeless attempt to keep this charade of life going. My body hair rising to the touch of a wool blanket. Sweat, dripping down my forehead, into my hair and ears. I can feel my eyes moving, focus points shifting. Muscles in my limbs, contracting rapidly, using up every last bit of lactic acid. The synapses in my brain, flashing so rapidly thinking physically hurts.
Still, I do. I think about you and I remember you. I can see your hair, blowing in the wind the day we watched fireworks on the boardwalk. We were seventeen and there was nothing in the world that could come between us. I can feel you squeezing my hand to the point of almost breaking it the day our son was born. Your hand is so little and hot and sweaty, yet there’s nothing I’d rather hold onto. It’s you and me against the world.
I think about that time you couldn’t believe you’ve actually won something, the way you screamed on top of your lungs. We were already in our fifties then, but you didn’t care, “It’s the Abel Prize, for God’s sake!!!”
I hear your laugh, inappropriately loud and larger than life as always. As I feel my body giving in, my only wish is to hear it forever.
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