TIVOLI JENSEN

As August and I were cuddling this morning, and the Spotify “Morning Acoustic” playlist was strumming in the background, and the sky was brightening with a slowness that rivaled ours to get off the couch, I felt content.

I really like these moments.  Moments where I forget the stress, or the fight versus flee of life, and I can just be.  I don’t have to do anything, nor do I have to go anywhere.  I can lay on a couch with my favorite girl and breathe for a while.

And I like that.  Breathing, I mean.

So much of life is taking deep breaths, or holding your breath, or breathing out slowly, or sighing, or panting, or hiccoughing. There are the shaky breaths before the storm comes, when your eyes are on the horizon and your feet seem to sink into the asphalt and you know this isn’t going to be good.  Or the breaths from crying that are all out of you but never seem to fill up again.  Or the ones when you’re swimming hard to forget the world, counting your strokes, and trying to get to the end without needing to breathe once because your lungs are so air-filled they could burst.  Or the laughing ones.  Or the depressed ones.  Or the small ones where you think the world may not crash down after all.

Not a lot of life, though, is just focused on steadily breathing in and out, with no demands to hold it, or quiet it, but to just do it.

This morning I was breathing.  And it was nice.  And the sky lightened, and the darkness bowed out for the full show of the morning, and the little girl and I laid there, our lips curling at the same moment with smiles that rivaled the sun illuminating our faces.