Don’t know what you got until it’s gone, as joni mitchel would say. A play on words that can’t be heard until they’re the last. The last word or the last verb: to breath. Just a breath of fresh air that we forget is so vital. A sign of sincerity in the recital. Gratitude toward each inhale as a reminder that our lungs are still fighting. A job that goes unrecognized as we unfamiliarize ourselves with their existence. Or until they stop working that is.
The chest rising and falling in a remarkable fashion. Without choice, without voice they do the job they’ve been given. Twenty thousand times a day, on average, they obey without contemplation, or compensation. They show up on time and punch in before we ever know they’ve arrived. A loyalty we might not ever understand, cuz we forget to give praise, or even a raise for a job well done. A promotion on the notion of life well breathed.
Maybe stopping to smell the roses or the hint of rain in the spring air. The suggestions that go unmentioned. The moments that go unnoticed. The exhale lost in a startling breeze, the howling wind in the bending trees. Still nothing. Ignorantly…we don’t know, nor do we perceive, what we got until it’s gone.
We pollute are lungs and take each breath further for granted. Disenchanted by the gift of each gasp. Each powerful inhale as the oxygen is transferred to our bloodstream, like a mountain stream offering life to all its tributaries. Without boundaries it gives, gives, gives and we just take, take, take our lungs, our air, our breath for granted. Like we’ve actually been granted the right to do so.
Choking on smoke we invite in. Standing in the cold, shivering for one more drag. Unconsciously…obviously. Otherwise why? Why would we poison our position on survival? For a revival not until the hospital when we finally wake up. Crushing what we’ve been so fortuitously granted, by the heels of our own shoes. Tossing them out the windows as if they were worthless and now we’re breathless. Not stunned, not taken a back, just breathless. Because we couldn’t see the gift in us.
Many are denied this gift without ever taking it for granted. Without ever dragging denial into their lungs. Still they battle disease. For those people, often children, we should be ever more pleased. That we’ve been blessed and give our best to recognize what we’ve got before it’s gone. Before it’s our last, or before it’s a struggle. Before we are coughing into our fists in a fight to stay alive. Before we drown our allowance and forfeit our hand we’ve been given. We should stop and listen.
To the life in each breath. Watch it rise and feel it feed our bodies. In each exhale revere the genteel expulsion of waste without haste to cleanse our systems and keep us running smoothly, or just …running. A jog or a stroll, a race or a marathon. We have a lot to be thankful for. Be mindful, don’t destroy. Your body’s not a toy to disregard when a new one arrives. Be grateful, you are alive….and breathing.
Cherish what you got before it’s gone. joni mitchel without a song. Whistling a new tune. A skip in the step. Breath thanks…so fresh and so clean, clean…consciously, purposefully, just breath for awareness, breath for justice, breath for the peace in all of us.
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