TAKE A DEEP BREATH

I need to admit several things tonight.

No. 1 - Talking for more than an hour on the phone with my sibling makes my face break out.

I will happily chat with my oldest daughter for days on end, and we never seem to run of things to talk/gossip/complain/praise.

And I don't seem to have any acne developments from this.

But about once a month, I call my brother, and normally leave a message on his answering machine, and he calls me back later when he can.

And we don't have a conversation - we have an exchange of obscure musical trivia facts.

I openly confess that I am incredibly jealous of my brother's brain. He has what is commonly referred to as a photographic memory, and besides the retention of an impossible amount of facts, is a talented and able musician.

Unfortunately, my brother's brain is almost missing a few things. Such as the regular give-and-talk of a tête-à-tête - letting the other person get a word in edgewise.

So somehow an hour on the phone becomes, literally, an hour with the phone stuck on my face as I resign myself to occasionally "uh hu,"s and "yeah, right"s, while I attempt to take care of the dogs, fill the horses' water, finish the dishes and eat my own dinner.

And then I notice that I am developing a sixteen-year-old-worthy zit on my left cheek.


No. 2 - I cannot walk and talk.

For years, I have excused my noticeable lack-of-grace with the glib idiom "I can't chew bubble gum and walk to the same time."

A common method of determining if you are running a good pace is to make certain you can talk while you are running.

I have never been able to do that. I have trouble talking while I am walking.

My lungs have extremely diminished capacity (I love 'diminished' - the word shrinks as you pronounce it) small due to a collapsed sternum , or what is called pectus excavatum - also referred to as a 'monkey chest' in children.

Regardless, I used to run four miles at a time… just really, really slowly.

Today, as I was huffing and puffing on a fairly short walk over to the mud football field to move the water hose for the 474th time this week (but boy, am I getting a impressive crop of mud), I finally accepted something.

I need to breath in with one step, breath out with the next. Without speaking. To just be able to walk and keep my breath.


No. 3 - I have been keeping up with daily exercise, smaller portions, healthier food for over two weeks… and I have GAINED four pounds.

[14TH CENTURY. ULTIMATELY < GERMANIC, AN IMITATION OF THE SOUND]

I have been paying particular attention this week to the subject of breathing.

At first it was only a slight tickle in my throat, which became a light clearing of my throat.

But then, taking matters into its own hands, it rapidly developed into a racking, hacking cough of a ex-smoker.

Forcing me into violent contortions while trying to simultaneously to cough up what was clogging my windpipe while drawing in enough breath in to fuel the muscles that were trying to cough.

It swiftly became one of those embarrassing situations where the action of trying to get rid of something triggers another bodily purpose which is, in civilized society, is conducted in private.

Translation: trying not to pee while coughing up a lung.

It's much better after a visit to my favorite physician, although the household is ribbing me incessantly about the quality and quantity of noise which I continue to produce every few minutes.

The dogs are positioning themselves as far away from me as possible, the horses have been startled into a full-out gallop around the pasture, and the cat has simply disappeared.

More cough syrup, anyone?