just like that, you take in what you need. and right after, you let go of what you don’t. this exchange happens without you having to do anything at all, the diaphragm and the lungs collaborating the whole time, your whole life. inhale let, exhale go.
spirometers measure lung capacity. lung capacity has a lot to do with living, with singing, with laughing, with lasting. breath keeping us measured, keeping us in time. spirometry as in the study of breath, like what keeps me breathing, easy, present.
i made a lil zine seeking exhale, volume i with some questions i’ve been sitting with and laughing with, among them:
in this atmosphere, within the regime of capitalism, how might we welcome breath?
could we build our own breath doors? could we conjure, nurture, sustain thresholds to breathing easier?
could we protect what it is in our lives that affords breath as we also imagine alternatives to the abysmal status quo?
what could breath, the letting go and the receiving, teach us about how we distribute resources, time, money?
how would you breathe if everyone in your community had clean, well-maintained housing, knew sanctuary and refuge?
could we put our trust in breath’s metabolism? in each other’s breath?
we can breathe through elections. we can breathe through the transformation that this moment in time is calling for. breath helps me pause (i.e. drink a lil oxygen you old tasmanian devil before you spin out. i’m an aries.)
Ra Malika Imhotep offers “an invitation to utilize a choreography of pause in the midst of widespread political absurdity.”
breath might teach me about the pace of life, it’s how i stay alive. oxygen for keeping lit and not burning out.
email skallison.27@gmail.com if you want a hard copy of the zine mailed to you :,)
tread lightly today, tomorrow and this week. i’m sending you a deep breath and a sigh of relief.