So I've been doing that thing again... holding my breath in my sleep. Its so weird. I don't know why I do it, and even though it most generally accompanies a dream where I am swimming (or worse yet, drowning), I don't realize I've done it until wake up and feel the aching in my lungs. If I am drowning, I wake up just before I presumably die, my chest heaving and tight; but most of the time, I don't fully wake and don't feel the ache until the next day. I think its those times that I must dream that I suddenly acquire the ability to breathe underwater.
Last night, I was swimming - in a pool with women I feel I know, yet don't recognize. The pool was in my elementary school gym, encased in old brick and containing the bluest of Maui waters. I was swimming lengths in the same lane with a beautiful acquaintance - though I can't quite remember who it was. The person I do remember, though, is the woman standing above the pool, in an all white pantsuit and a silver whistle dangling from her neck: it's Ellen. Yes, as in Degeneres. How wierd is that? She kept blowing that damn whistle. And, I kept holding my damn breath. Until, eventually, when I inhaled slowly, shallowly, and miraculously learned I could breath in the liquid and survive moments, minutes, hours immersed in this blue heaven.
Maybe seconds later or maybe hours later, I am crawling out of straw-covered ground into an open charred field and staring at orange fire in the sky, ready to dodge sparks that might be coming my way. This time I am with men, all of whom I recognize, some of whom I love, others whom I fear. Our bodies are covered in black soot and the air is thick with black smoke. And, strangely, I do not hold my breath here; no, here, I breathe in eagerly, freely, hungrily.
No comments:
Post a Comment