Have you held your breath: A reflection
Acceptance and transformation
The process
This past June, I spent a week working in Florida near the Atlantic Ocean. Typically, summer trips include my wife and three kids, but there was no flexibility in when this trip could happen so only two kids were able to go. The house we were staying in was beautiful with large spaces, airy and open bedrooms, and a pool, so we decided to invite a few friends to come along to share in the luxury. I also planned to work fewer hours than normal to turn the week into a “working vacation”.
Pairing new relational dynamics in a vacation place while one person was working made for a unique week. I did not have the ongoing connection with the group that I was hoping to have, mostly as a function of minimal overlapping time together. The others stayed up late and slept in, but in an effort to wrap up my work early in the day, I went to bed early and got up early. Then, due to work demands that emerged, most days I ended up working until early evening, putting in more hours than a typical week. We were left with just a few hours to spend together walking the beach, swimming the ocean, floating in the pool, and playing cards.
On the flight home I felt guilty for the quantity of time I shared with the people I was with. My seatmate was immersed in their own world, so I cracked open my notebook and decided to journal it out. Going into the trip, I had set expectations with everyone that there would be long periods of time when I would be unavailable. While the time we did have was less than anticipated, what we had was quality time of meaningful connection with some beautiful, intentional moments throughout the week. Quickly, I realized my feelings were a reflection not born from the week’s dynamics, but from the chronic condition of trying to do more than is needed. Diving deeper into this led me to a place where the words acceptance and transformation became top of mind.
Acceptance and transformation are words that hold tremendous potential as they play out in ways extremely personal based on people’s individual history and traits. Transformation begins with an honest assessment of what is at hand, then an acceptance of how things are. One may not like the current state, but to push away what is close or spin in a positive light that which is holding you back will surely hold you back. After all, how can you push something away without constant or repeated contact with the object? And how can you take brave steps to transform if your positive spin keeps you submissive to what you know you should leave?
The poem
After pondering these questions for a short time, I was led from my journaling into a poetic mind where I began to write without a destination, just the ideas of acceptance and transformation as wheels to ride upon. Having left the ocean and its unfathomable depths behind, the waters below the surface seemed like a great subject to use in exploration of these ideas. The ocean is a place of more mystery than any other place on the earth, and for all that we don’t know there are strange, tangible experiences these waters offer. Stand with feet just within the ocean entrance and feel the sand run away from you as you sink an inch at a time. Walk out farther and feel the power of waves that hit you with a force you cannot stand against. Swim past the break, and that power simply moves you up and down as if you were a human bobber. Submerge your head to intently listen and be transported into a place of other-worldly sound. Open your eyes and everything appears in a new view.
The picture in Have you held your breath is of a person slowly sinking into the ocean staring at the surface receding from them. Exploration of the body, sight, and sound are all present to immerse the reader into these depths in a way that displays juxtaposition. There is the dance of the sinking body, whether one enjoying the movement of their limbs through cold water’s resistance or one struggling to swim and reaching for rescue. There is the epic view from below of water, air bubbles and light that could also be the view of life escaping. Sea in the lungs is never a good thing though it is set alongside the words understanding and melody, both words that elicit favorable responses in most contexts.
The middle stanza of this poem begins with the bold statement, “You know how to breathe here”. What can this possibly mean as we know on the surface it is certainly not true! I suppose that is the point. This poem is not written on the surface, it is written to pull you to personal depths where a different understanding and knowledge live. Consider the concepts. Breathing under water. Us being the substance that is breathed in. Smoke permeating water. How we think things are is not only how things are.
In the first draft, the poem ended with a simple And there is nothing to see / and nothing to be / and nothing to breathe. Beautiful as it was, there was a feeling that was missing that was uncovered while editing. The final poem elicits a haunting, and though I cannot confidently say how, I think it is likely for two reasons. The first is the multiplicity that rings throughout the poem brought gently into the end through the simple repetition of simple lines. The second is the layering of the word nothing throughout the stanza. We battle against being nothing our entire life as we prop up our egos and work to become something. We fear disappearance, whether disappearance of a skill, trait, relationship, or our life, but we know deep down all will disappear. To come to accept this truth is also a way of accepting our source, that is the nothing we emerge from and the nothing we are.
Final thought
Times in life where we sit in an unsettled state are often the times where transformation happens. If there are any guarantees in life, one is that we will all be confronted with a time where we are faced with a stark choice between transformation and a figurative (and sometimes literal) death, when all we really want is to remain the same. More often, these unsettling’s happen quietly without the stark, immediate risk. If we learn to listen to these little whispers and head their call, we can be led to a place of ongoing transformation where we live in a sense of peace, regardless of the waters around us.
May you know how to breath here…
Brian
If you missed the original “A Poem” post of Have you held your breath, I hope you will read and enjoy! You can find it here.
Have you held your breath
...and eyes forced open
as your out breath
rises to the surface,
hundreds of Jupiters
replenish the sea,
heart beats
a base drum...
Such a powerful, fundamental metaphor. Nicely done.
"And how can you take brave steps to transform if your positive spin keeps you submissive to what you know you should leave?" -- so very true, Brian.
Thank you for this reflection, Brian. Really loved hearing your thought process and events that led to this emerging.
"You know how to breathe here" -- rereading this, I very much took this to mean that one intrinsically knows how to adapt and cope in a situation when you're figuratively out of your depth. The adaptation and transformation becomes central here.
Great stuff.