The Next Bold Move – Me Vs. The World

In high school I took dance lessons, well continued dance lessons as I have been dancing ever since I could stand.  My siblings and I took lessons from Nancy Rhines, or Dancy Nancy, as my mom used to say to differentiate between our dance teacher and our neighbor Nancy (who wasn’t really a neighbor at all living across the highway and a mile away from our house). In high school Dancy Nancy used to cheer us on during lessons in her chipper voice, “don’t forget to breathe,” as we sautéd across the studio. “Keep breathing,” as we pirouetted in time to the music. My older sister and I used to mock Nancy at home. We thought it was a ridiculous thing to forget to breathe, but as the dances became more difficult we understood. As we concentrate on the steps you tend to hold your breath.

I think of Nancy from time to time when I am running, in yoga, or working on something that takes so much of my concentration that I somehow forget to do the normally involuntary action. I heard her voice the day I boarded the plane to fly back to California.

‘Keep breathing Libs.’ I tell myself as I walk past the flight attendants. ‘Remember to breathe.’ I repeat as I find my seat amongst strangers again. I sit down and open my journal and write my mantra that has gotten me through similar situations. Saying it doesn’t help – I have to write it over and over again distracting my mind. Eventually it whispering it as I write calms my breathing back to normal.

THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING

It is the title of a book by a Scottish woman. I read it in my Contemporary Scottish Literature class years ago. All I remember is that it was written from the perspective of a woman who was having an affair with a married man and when he died nobody acknowledged her grief just the wife’s. I think the married couple was separated, but it was still a scandalous affair in a small Scottish town. I couldn’t tell you if the book was good or not or who wrote it just that it had the perfect title.

I don’t know why I’m having a panic attack on the plane, but I am. I can feel my lungs expand and shrink in my chest rapidly with each shortened breath. My body temperature rises and sweat starts to roll down my forehead, but I’m cold and want the comfort of a blanket. I pull the soft blanket Jill and Rachael gave me for xmas. I tuck it around my bare legs. It was close to 100 F in Lima when I left. I also turn the vent above my seat. The voices around me are singing sentences in Spanish and I am used to not understanding what is being said around me. I have my journal open and I’m scribbling down “the trick is to keep breathing” over and over again when the emergency instructions override the other voices. First in Spanish and then in English. Does anyone even pay attention to the instructions? I calm my breathing down enough to ask myself – what is wrong? It was one of those moments when the world is spinning out of control and everyone around me is frozen in time.

What is wrong? I have no idea what I’m going home to. I have no idea what I’m going to do next. I have no idea where I’m going to be in 5 months and people want me to make a plan for 5 years. I don’t even know if the earth or the human race is going to be around in 5 years or maybe that is just wishful thinking.

I could start looking for a job. I could probably get a good job with my education and experience in the Marines, but why? That isn’t what I want – to be stuck in an apartment lease, an annual salary, 2 weeks paid vacation, sick days, health care plans, etc. etc. I had a great job with meaning and easy promotions all the way to Major. I hated it. Why would I go back to that lifestyle? So what now? I have school to work on. Somedays I’m not so sure it’s worth it to have my masters in creative writing, but it keeps me writing and when the Post 9/11 GI Bill kicks in I’ll be getting paid to go to school. So I keep pushing through not to promote a career, but because I love to write and want to get better. I also stay in school like many of the people I know still in school getting nursing degrees, or PhD’s or whatever else – so we don’t have to face the fact that we’re grown ups now. We avoid the life of work, dinner, sleep. Work dinner, sleep. work, dinner, marriage, sleep. Work, dinner, kid, sleep. Some of us are afraid of growing old and the responsibilities that entails, some of us want these things and are taking our time to get there.

So I have school and my writing to focus on, except I can’t focus. I have time to run and go to yoga, but that only keeps my concentration for an hour or so. I have all this stuff in storage to rummage through and try to sell or donate to charity. The longer I go without the less I feel the need to hold on to it all. I am halfway planning a trip back to Indiana, but it will be hard to get the motivation to do it. Why leave a perfect paradise to visit the cornfields? I want to go to the Grand Canyon and hike or white river raft. Maybe I’ll hide out there for a couple weeks.

Everyone is asking “then what?” and I don’t know. I want to go to India in the fall. I have a wedding I’m in this August. I want to drive out to NYC to visit some friends and the city. Then what? What is it with our planning obsessed society? Have we really become that spontaneophobic? Do I have to have a plan? Maybe if I did I wouldn’t have panic attacks in airplanes. I learned in the jungle that if you take away the cars, computers, excess shit that we have in the “western” or “developed” or whatever you want to call us, all you have to do is survive. It’s as simple as that and they are happy. We don’t need our big salaries and fancy houses we can’t pay for, we have everything we need and yet we have these things and we manage to want more along with our antidepressants and 5 o’clock cocktails. Then again in the jungle they don’t have the means to art, music, theater. Maybe it’s a fair trade.

So, now what? I’m going to get rid of the things I don’t need and live out of my car for awhile. That’s my plan. I’ll travel to friends I haven’t seen in awhile and see all of the US I haven’t seen yet. I can live without a job for awhile. Money only gets you so far in life and stuff only ties you down. I think as long as I keep breathing I think I’ll be okay.

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