It happened three times on the playground of Washington Elementary. Once falling from the swings. Once from the dragon head of the monkey bars. (Why it didn’t have a monkey head, I’ll never know, nor why we didn’t question it.) And once from the horizontal spinning pole. Each time landing splat on my back, “knocking the wind” right out of me, gasping for air, the breath I took for granted, gone. The solution from the faces that stared down at me was this, “just breathe.” And they were always right, but the thing they never told me, us, these teachers and principals, (and they had to have known, I realize this only now), that this could and would happen again without even falling. 

Does anyone ever realize how much “wind” they have been given? I have been writing about it for decades. Painted it. Danced in it. But still, when it is taken away, this breath of love… From grandparents and parents. Children. Friends. It’s hard to imagine that you’ll ever breathe again. But it comes back. And then one day, you find that you did indeed survive, and you are now the one looking down, smiling gently, having captured all the breaths of love that never really left, saying “just breathe…just breathe…”