As I was completing my promenade with Mademoiselle Mozhna one late afternoon in the capital of Velours, I happened to cross a reminder of death and life, a memento mori if you will: a balloon filled with the air of the breath of the living. The sight of the already deflating souvenir of the mortal ether spun both of us into the maelstrom of human questioning. How long had this breath been thus captured? Had it been there since the beginning of Summer's fairs? And was it filled with the breath of a parent's love for his or her child? Wouldn't one want to collect this memo of love as a reminder of the still encapsulated breath of one's loved one, and preserve it for a time when the visible world seems too dense to see through it, and feel yet one last time, one very last time, the lost one's breath against his or her cheek, one very last time?
Why was such a precious breath discarded in such a way? Was its soul purpose that of the ephemeral game of life, a simple badinade? As I observe even closer the spectacle before me, the balloon's stem reminded me of the knotted umbilical cord of a new born. How symbolic, I mused. Here in one image, all of life combined: the forgotten yet manifested value of mortal breath in its truest form, escaping, slowly and enulactably, leaving behind the wrinkled body that once was flushed with colour, its value increased through its brevety; and the knot, against all odds, that tries to prevent it, alas, from escaping. Should one hold on as long as possible to one's own breath for fear of needing it one day? And does one not take away from its value when one tries to hold back one's breath? Very difficult it is to eat, kiss, blow bubbles and sing and talk and speak poetry when one's breath is tied...very difficult indeed!
Decisively, one lives when one breathes; one loves life when one accepts breath's, and by extension, one's finite nature. Letting go of the breath that holds you. This is the invisible lesson inscribed into one's own lungs, the tree of life within.
As I child, I remember holding my breath, engulfing the trees i held within with all the might and magical belief that inspires childhood, believing this would preserve my life a while longer. It would, I thought, delay my demise, put a crease in time, suspend the animated, and bring me one more breath closer to life, one more breath away from material end. Maybe it worked, for it seems sometimes as if my life is endless. Maybe the child I was knew what I forgot as an adult, that value comes with playing with one's breath. Practicing the letting go. As a child I remembered this game to be funny. I laughed out loud, bursting into laughter once I let go of my breath. Laughing in the face of Death: Ha ha! See Death, my laughter keeps my trees strong where my cooing heart keeps its nest!
Lessons from the Velours Abattoir
Lessons from the balloon:
Breath will escape you, little by little. It is not yours, it was lent to you for a brief time. If you don't spend it, its value decreases.
Lessons from the breath:
It is truly a gift that tries to teach us to let go during every moment of one's life. Till the end, it will accompany and teach and guide, teaching to let life in, then letting life go, letting life in, then letting life go...and then letting life breathe us in and letting us go, and breathing us in...
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