Breathing In Is Borrowing, Breathing Out Is Repaying

A breath comes in empty-handed and goes out the same way. No invoice, no stamp with the date it was borrowed, no line at the bottom for me to sign. And all day the body quietly performs one slightly strange task: borrow and return, return and borrow. I can forget the glass of water I just drank, forget what was in the meal I just ate, forget where I put a thing I was holding three minutes ago. The breathing is the one thing I am not allowed to forget. It does the job for me, evenly, diligently, without asking for a raise. Which is lucky, because if this had been left to my memory I would not last a morning.

Breathing in is borrowing. Breathing out is repaying. It sounds as simple as taking something from a hand and putting it back where it was, and whichever way I turn it there is something unsettled in it. If the body lives on a loan taken out second by second, how much of what I call mine actually belongs to me? This hair, these eyes, these two hands, the back that starts filing complaints when I sit too long, all of it runs on water, food, air and a pile of other things arriving from outside. I say my body very firmly, and it operates like a rented house: the utilities still have to be topped up, and whatever breaks, the landlord is also the tenant.

The joke is that the tenant loves decorating. Thin hair, find a way to thicken it. Thick hair, complain about washing it. Straight hair wants curls, curly hair wants straightening, and freshly dyed hair has to be shielded in the shower like a national monument. Then skin, lips, nails, eyebrows, a separate accessory for each, and together they would stock a small stall. There is nothing wrong with wanting to look good. I know the feeling of wanting to step outside as a presentable version of yourself. It is only funny that sometimes we tend the curtains more carefully than the plumbing, worry that the paint colour is off and never hear the house rattling inside.

The body is not good at elegant speech. It speaks in aches, in a night of bad sleep, in a breath shorter than usual, in a leg that will suddenly no longer walk as fast as it did. When you are young a lot of it runs on instinct: hold the book right up to your face, bite something hard, run up the stairs, stay awake a few hours longer. Then one day the book has to move further away. The food has to be a bit softer. The handrail on the stairs becomes noticeably more charming. None of those changes announce themselves with a drum. They shift a little at a time, small enough that it is easy to shrug and say I am a bit tired today. And then a bit stretches across many days while you carry on pretending not to notice.

There is a story I once heard, about someone who cooked breakfast for their mother that morning, sat and ate with her, and kissed her twice before stepping into the next room. And died that same morning. I do not want to use it to frighten myself into hurrying, and I do not want to turn every meal into a tearful farewell. What holds me is how chillingly ordinary it is. No siren. No sad music arriving on cue. The morning was still a morning, the food was still there, the two kisses were still warm, and one breath simply did not come back.