Breathing by Mark O'Brien

For the poem that I thought well encapsulates my experiences during quarantine, I chose Breathing by Mark O'Brien

Breathing by Mark O'Brien

Grasping for straws is easier;

You can see the straws.

“This most excellent canopy, the air, look you,”

Presses down upon me

At fifteen pounds per square inch,

A dense, heavy, blue-glowing ocean,

Supporting the weight of condors

That swim its churning currents.

All I get is a thin stream of it,

A finger’s width of the rope that ties me to life

As I labor like a stevedore to keep the connection.

Water wouldn’t be so circumspect;

Water would crash in like a drunken sailor,

But air is prissy and genteel,

Teasing me with its nearness and pervading immensity.

The vast, circumambient atmosphere

Allows me but ninety cubic centimeters

Of its billions of gallons and miles of sky.

I inhale it anyway,

Knowing that it will hurt

In the weary ends of my crumpled paper bag lungs.

I didn't choose this poem for any relation to COVID 19 being a respiratory illness of some sort, but more in the sense that it perfectly describes what it feels like to take a breath. Breathing is something we all do; we need to do it to survive. For an action that our lives are so dependent on, we are almost never aware of our breathing until someone brings it up. I bet you're more aware of your breathing now;) I think it's worth noting that during our everyday lives, breathing is the least of our concern-- we go into autopilot mode. But quarantine has given us an opportunity to be more aware of our surroundings. It's given us to be more aware of our breathing, as well as everything else we might do during this isolated time. 

My experience with quarantine has been a wild ride, to be honest, as have most people's. There have been periods of inspiration, starting new hobbies, trying new recipes, and extreme boredom. But through it all, it showed me that I took time for granted. We depend on keeping ourselves busy and constantly working to get us through our day that we rarely just stop and smell the roses. That revelation has been the most significant aspect of my quarantine. Even after two months of being stuck in the house, I still sometimes find myself lacking in motivation to do stuff-- in the sense that I want to do so much but can't bring myself to actually do it. In that sense, for those of us who aren't drowning in school work or you know, job work, quarantine has forced us to reprogram ourselves to stop and take a deep breath. And it's been a wild ride.