Breathe. Breathe? Breathe. Breathe because we do it 20,000 times a day and don’t think about it once. Breathe because it’s five or six seconds to yourself. Breathe because you can’t inspire and you can’t aspire without it. (Spiro, spirare, spiravi, spiratus.)
Breathe because you haven’t since August, or since you started your summer job, or since freshman year. Breathe from exams. Breathe from papers. Breathe from Curriculum 2000.
Breathe because it’s Friday. Breathe because it’s Friday and the nation hasn’t collapsed yet. Breathe because tomorrow’s Saturday.
Breathe from Bush vs. Kerry. From Israel vs. Palestine. From Yankees vs. Red Sox. Breathe from all of the things we identify with because even though they define us, they are crippling us, and we don’t need to be an Italian-American pro-life anti-gun Northern Democrat every hour of the day. Breathe because if we had to introduce ourselves like that, we’d run out of breath. Breathe without a versus.
Breathe from controversy, because we’re all swimming in it, and we need to get our heads above the water. Breathe because even though we’re college students and we love us some controversy, we’re getting strangled by it. Breathe from kegs on the quad. Breathe from Bill Burig. Breathe from Chronicle columns. (Mine, too.)
Breathe because with our schedules these days we’re going to need those seconds. Breathe because it’s just going to get worse. Breathe from the information superhighway. Breath from the speed of light. Breathe from your cell phone, your Blackberry. Breathe from the insignificant little stuff that clouds our heads every day. Breathe from reality TV. Breathe from the Top 40. Breathe from Ashlee Simpson’s hoe-down.
Breathe because that’s how you get your head together. Because it gives you a moment to think about the important problems and we’re the ones who are going to have to tackle them. Breathe for Iraq. Breathe for Sudan. Breathe for the kids with cancer. Breathe for the kids who can’t breathe because they’re being abused, right now, every minute. Breathe, breathe, breathe.
Breathe from partisanship. Breathe from red states and blue states. Breathe because whether you loved the election or are disgusted by it, you’re breathing American air. Breathe because you need everybody in this nation to do the business of politics and we’ve spent a lot of time wasting our breath by shouting each other down. Breathe because there’s still a lot of work to do in this country. Breathe because if you only breathed once every four years, you’d die.
Breathe because every living thing on this planet does it, and we’re right in the center of it. Breathe the air in our little corner of Durham and realize how big a world there is out there, that you’re sucking in the same oxygen that may have been over in Russia or Argentina not too long ago. Breathe because maybe you’re catching a few of the same molecules that Alexander the Great did, or Mother Teresa, or maybe just Justin Timberlake. Breathe because it reminds us we’re all not that different.
Breathe from college. Breathe from all the opportunities we have, how lucky we are to be here. Breathe for all those who aren’t so lucky, and take the five seconds to think about something you can share other than your breath.
Breathe from the job hunt. (Breathe, teachers and lawyers and I-bankers.) Breathe from graduation. (Breathe, seniors.) Breathe from ACES and scheduling and spring semester. (Breathe, underclassmen.) Breathe because if you look at things only a few seconds at a time you can enjoy it, getting yourself into the present instead of worrying about the future.
Breathe because so many of us here are just counting from one to 20,000 every day and before you know it the days are shorter, the nights are colder and another year is going by. Breathe for the last months of 2004. Breathe because we can’t understand where our lives our going, where our school is headed, or where our nation is bound. Breathe because when you do, it’ll all seem a little less scary.
Breathe.
Matt DeTura is a Trinity senior.
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