My breath, uneven

My breath comes in uneven, first, it's a series of shallow breaths, then a ragged sigh, and a big gulp that fills the rib cage. I realize I've been holding my breath again because it helps to hold in all that grief, I have a double lump at the back of the throat.

The doctor said Alice was holding in her grief, and that's why Montezuma's revenge was so complete.

When Jim left, I remembered it was at Christmas, I thought my bowels had found the deepest ends of the earth. I watched the skin loosen, the clothes hanging over the bones and still I didn't let go of the breath.

Maybe I hold onto it because I'd rather die than than let it go as I have grown used to holding it like a familiar, and like a mother I'm afraid to let it out of my sight.

It is difficult to sing when I'm tired. I'm beginning to discover how this tiredness is deceptively masking. The lump in my throat.

I remember Mom saying, don't pout. It makes you ugly. Couldn't she see it was facial muscles straining to keep control, and to keep back the tears? I hum a low tune under my breath. She says, don't hum under your breath. Either sing it out or don't sing at all.

I get back at her. For months I don't sing a thing. But in spite of my resolve, I begin singing again, experimenting singing aloud. Singing, singing. My joy is singing.

Years later Carolyn Couls and I go backpacking in the Sierras and she belts out, the hills are alive with the sound of music, and I drop my trailmix on the ground by the meadow stream. A family comes around the bend and the man says, if you can't let it out here, then you can't do it anywhere at all.

6/28/1985
with Mike Tuggle
CPITS workshop?