We Always Have Room to Breath
Nothing is helped by holding our breath.
Dear Friend,
This morning I’m staying with a friend in Sheffield. In a house full of memories. The window I sit at has a different view. Looking up I see silhouettes, bare black branches of trees against the sweep of the sky. Electric green moss, red brick, early cherry blossom like three pink butterflies on a whip thin sapling.
I came by train, thinking it would be a lovely relaxing journey. I’d write, perhaps chat with a fellow passenger or two, enjoy a cup of tea. I got to the station with a reasonable time buffer, only to find this:
We stood like this. Waiting. An hour passed. Another began. There was a woman shouting through a tannoy for us to queue on the left for Sheffield, a man telling us to queue on the right.
Confusing. But trains were arriving, filling up and leaving.
Eventually we got on a train. Standing room only. A young guy suggested I perch on his table, we got chatting and shared the home made pizza I had with me.
A lady who was a nurse with ADHD kept up a monologue, throughout the journey. Her friend has a dairy farm, her son is joining the marines, he has an awful (her opinion) tattoo of Janus the ‘two faced’ Greek god on his chest, I think it was chest, it could have been his back. She had a date with a man from Ethiopia, who wouldn’t tell her his real name. They had a supermarket meal deal. He told her she looked like Bjork. She thought she looked like ‘Shirley Temple on steroids.’
It was lovely.
In the queue, before getting on the train, I got talking to a tattoo artist and musician from Leeds. An easy conversation. A shared love of Marina Abromovich. Also diagnosed ADHD, a love of myth, visual thinking. Early successes in music and then the big drop. The ‘normal world’ rubbish. A father of one with a new baby on the way. He missed his connecting train to Leeds. More delays.
In those delays, connections made.
In our crowded city.
In our crowded minds.
There’s always room to breathe.
Delays threaten when we are on a deadline.
A dead.
Line.
We are all on a dead line.
All the same, very few situations are helped by holding our breath.
Our greatest need on the physical plane, our next breath. Taking your next breath, there’s freedom in it. Just this. Clouds passing. The zoom of traffic.
I can hear my friend, coughing. The floor boards creaking. He has the lurgy. My stomach gurgling for breakfast.
One long breath. It comes in, and it goes out.
Coming and going, we find ourselves.
If we immerse our minds in our breath, the crowded parts of the mind begin to dissolve.
Do this as a habit and over time you get a quiet mind.
I’ll keep up the reminders. It’s mostly a case of remembering.
If I’m counting correctly, today is my 50th post. To mark the mile post, I’m planning something different today.
If you’re a subscriber and have the substack app on your phone, look out for a message from me. There’s a function on substack that’s a bit like a group whatsapp. They call it chat.
Later today I’ll be reaching out on chat to find out more about you.
I can’t help wondering how you’re finding these posts. Have any resonated with you? Are you trying to read every one of them or dipping in and out?
Thank you for reading joining me on this journey, destination unknown.
So happy to share it with you.
Till tomorrow,
Love
Mikey