The breath has four parts.
The inhale.
The stillness at the top of the inhale.
The exhale.
The stillness at the bottom of the exhale.
The inhale.
I am packing. For a trip that — right now, in this moment — I do not want to take.
I am happy, comfortable in this life. Moreover, it is a life I have made for myself. Leaving it is always unsettling.
Here, people have always known me as I am now — or at least, as the person I’ve gradually become over the last several years. As an adult. And, barring certain isolated work relationships, as equals.
There, I’m going back to people who have predominantly known me as a child. Because I moved away, because we haven’t spoken, they have not interacted as much with grown up me. Not all of them think of grown up me as me. They are used to thinking of me in the role and relationship of a child.
Daughter, granddaughter, little sister.
The inherent power structures in those roles favored the other people. Those relationships were sometimes painful.
These are people I love. But they are also people to whom I have a duty, with whom I share a bond. In this moment, the latter part nags at me. In this moment, I do not want to go.
At the airport, my anxiety grows as I funnel through line after line after line.
My identification is examined. My card is scanned.
My identification is examined again. My bag is scanned.
My identification is examined. I am scanned.
I conform to every regulation. I do not make a scene. I never make scenes.
And yet.
As I herd myself into the last line, the line to board the plane, there is a voice inside me. “I don’t have to go. Here is the part where I could change everything. Here is the part where I could say no.”
The stillness at the top of the inhale.
I step on the plane.
The exhale
Except when I get here, it is different.
There are still the people problems, the expectations, the tensions.
But it is this place that pulls me most.
There is something about it I can’t quite articulate, something beneath the surface. An energy, an attitude, a rhythm. It is simultaneous slipping into usefulness — without desire, without pride, without hollow voice — and contentment in being still. It is effort and ease, work and rest, speech and silence, community and solitude.
Always, always when I return, I slip back — effortlessly — into the rhythm of this place.
It is no surprise. I come from this place. I have lived most of my life in this place. I am a part of this place, and it is always, always a part of me.
Still, eventually, I have to leave.
This always hurts so much more than leaving my standard, comfortable, everyday life. Though this transplant is the more jarring, there’s something of coming home in it — coming home after having been gone too long. I spend most of my life in my self-made, desert, adult life. Leaving here is where it feels I’m leaving too soon and for too long.
Too much changes in the interim. Too much we grow apart — these people, this place, and me.
As I hug my mom goodbye, there is a voice inside me. “I don’t have to go. Here is the part where I could change everything. Here is the part where I could say no.”
The stillness at the bottom of the exhale.
I step on the plane.
The breath has four parts.
The inhale.
The stillness at the top of the inhale.
The exhale.
The stillness at the bottom of the exhale.
