Breath as metronome for the quotidian

I learned to breathe mindfully, with attention when I was 20, in my first few yoga classes. As the white noise from people constricting the back of their throats became the soundtrack for our practice, breath became my steady companion— the metronome to the quotidian.

A friend recently remarked, “You sigh a lot. You must have a lot to release.”

“I think I do.”  I replied 

I’ve breathed through panic attacks, through physical pain residual from years as a gymnast, breathed through the wishes of not wanting to be alive, through pleasurable and erotic sex and through mediocre sex, I’ve continued to breathe.

I remember my breath when my car soared off the road and landed in the tree trunk that day, I remember it feeling like my only tether to the living. I remember closing my eyes after realizing my call with emergency services had dropped due to my phone overheating; all I could do was listen to the rhythm of my breath.

I try not to take for granted this being alive, this being a living breathing thing. I try to remember to thank my breath for its constant companionship, for it being the metronome for the subtle and the grand motions of this life. If  the breath is moving, so too, is life. And sometimes it’s enough to know that life is still moving.