Breath

You never took a breath.

You were the first I saw enter this world; and the breath you never took has been the same breath I hold in the moments life tests the extent of my presumptions and that I wish to take for granted. 

The same breath that I hold as I scan for a fetal heart that was unable to be found with the bedside doppler.

The breath held awaiting the realisation of joy and relief on a worried face. 

Your breath; that I hold in the moment time stands still following the delivery of difficult news.

The same breath that holds me, in the moments I am paralysed by the fear of the worst outcomes that my human error could deliver. 

A borrowed breath full of air so heavy my lungs hurt; slowly exhaled to a universe that had never noticed its absence.

Good night, 2020.

Good night, 2020 - what to say about a year like you?

Warning: it’s a long one.

I’ll clarify from the outset that I am so aware of the incredible luck and privilege that I have experienced over the last twelve months. My experience is one that has largely escaped the worst human and economic consequences of the pandemic, and I have also had the fortune of having strong support networks around me (even if not always physically close) to navigate the challenges it has presented.

And so when I share how grateful I am for the journey it has taken me on, I do so knowing that it is not because I have had a unique wisdom or strength beyond those who have suffered so much this year; I have simply been lucky beyond words to have had enough safety and stability in my world to find space to grow from its challenges. 

Thank you 2020 for bringing me the people I loved when I needed them most, but also for forcing me to grow and find my own path in the months of separation that I never would have thought I could tolerate. 

Thank you for the first post-lockdown climbs, for the long-awaited coffee dates, for the walks, for new friends, for old friends, for finally touching rock in NSW, for passing exams through what could only be administrative error, and for teaching me how peace can be found in accepting and walking towards feared scenarios, rather than fighting the possibility they may occur.

I never could have predicted that the deconstruction of my world that threw me into such despair in March would be what eventually liberated me from the anxiety of trying to keep it held together.

But all this said - never before have I felt so blessed to spend New Years Eve sitting with friends sharing sunset climbs, wine, cheese and a beautiful view. If 2020 has taught me anything, it is that 2021 does not owe us anything - but I am optimistic we have every reason to bring it our hope.

Thank you for the return to climbing 1.0 (pre-COVID).

Thank you for the first post-lockdown-coffee.

Thank you for the return to climbing 2.0 (post-COVID).

Thank you for the first taste of NSW climbing since I moved to Sydney.

Thank you for post-exam celebrations with beautiful uni friends.

Thank you for post-exam climbing adventures with beautiful climbing friends.

Thank you for the privilege of watching little people discover the joy of a sunny morning in Morialta for the first time.

Thank you for sunset climbs to finish the year.

And then, we're old

"What happened?"
"We got old, love."
The clarity of her question emerged so stark from her delirium, and his response so prompt yet so profound.

I close my eyes and reopen them, and time passes with no one pushing it along; like Newton's Law it seems to just remain in perpetual motion. I can close them for longer. Is that what happened?

Wait.

I close my eyes again, and become aware of the story from another side of the room.

"Is pain, is always the pain, every night I pray that it will be gone when I wake up, but is still there." Her plea to external sources or higher powers to remedy her situation repeated to the point of no distinction from background noise. Her requests persist, despite yielding no success. She closes her eyes, and waits; time continues.

I close my eyes, and cast them backwards in time.
The moments when it becomes real that all we are all both merely and incredibly human.
The moments when two souls remove their human skin and allow a small glimpse of full exposure; the beautiful and the vile.
The moments when it becomes real that souls are temporarily human.
Because these moments are temporary, as we are.

Wait. Or don't wait. Keep your eyes shut, or open them.

And then we're old.

Words, colours, and songs.

How to give a word,
to the moment when the world shrank and pulled me into its core,
both strangulation and tender embrace?

How to describe the colours,
when I had never noticed the breath the infinity was taking,
until it was let go,
and the parts that made it whole were set free into an expanse that couldn't be called a 'world' any longer?

And is there a song for the sound,
the one where the noise only exists in the silence that follows?
Here the echo,
I heard the echo,
louder the second time than the first.

And in trying to make sense of this nonsensical place,
the only clarity seems to be,
that no words, colours, or songs are adequate descriptions for its existence.

A Little Bit of Heart in a Big World of the Human Relationship Economy

The price of a little bit of heart:

Seemingly unadjusted with inflation in a market which to my growing perspective is simultaneously increasingly sparse and populated,

And yet the debt of its loss seems entirely equivalent.

And it makes me wonder,

Is the free market of human connectedness truly liberating,

or crippling,

or both?

This particular breath.

This particular breath came from a different breeze.

A touch of something without a name,
A song that inspired hesitation;
Something in the air that pulls my gaze from the future to the present.

At the top of the breath I wait for it to give itself an identity,
But it remains nameless,
And I wonder how long I can live inside this breath.

Not long, I find,
And I must give this borrowed breath back to the universe.

A letter to the infinity.

A great breath of the universe filling my lungs;
An infinite expanse in a finite space.
Dear universe, how do you fit inside me?

A great breath of love and pain,
of the beautiful and repulsive,
of greed and heart,
all clearly distinct from each other in my mind,
and yet indistinguishable entities as the breath enters my lungs.
Dear universe, what are you made of?

After my breath the universe remains whole,
and I wonder whether these elements of the infinity in my breath could be counted as my breaths can be counted.
Dear universe, will you miss the beauty I took in that breath?

Infnite but counted,
all one and the same yet each part distinct and unique.
Dear universe, you are so much greater than me,
and yet I am a part of your infinity and this makes me wonder,
whether I too am a breath.