songs about breathing
January 11, 2002 11:26 AM

Yesterday morning.

Strangely. I had the first asthma attack in many years. Probably ten years. No, probably more. I had forgotten all the signs.

But I remembered (self-preservation, instinctively) what to do. I remembered hot shower, peppermint tea, three cherry cokes, the over the counter drugs that are pure manufactured adrenaline. Cherry coke is a very effective bronchodilator if you don't drink caffeine. "Herbal ectasy" is a much smaller dose of epinephrine, but a double dose of it works in a pinch. If you find yourself among hippies in 1995.

I dilated.

Then went off to work. Because, I don't know. I was fine. Breathing again and fine.

Missing two things.

One. That simply breathing again, while it feels a thousandfold better than not breathing, is not necessarily all you need.

Two. That lack of oxygen in your blood. That streaming caffeine and adrenaline in your blood. That the euphoria of no longer not breathing. Is a very. Very strong cocktail of stimulants. You act. Not exactly like, but not unlike, either. The people you've seen on cocaine. And like them, you don't notice that no one else exists in your time. And you feel, briefly, more extraverted than you ever imagined.

Following the mania that was yesterday, I feel I need to apologise everyone I spoke to. For talking so fast, so furiously. For not stopping talking when I should have.

For the slight sinus headache and sore from twitching muscles that remind me. Of my reoxygenated blood.

And I did go to a doctor later. It was the doctor who made me realise the manicness.

I wish I had time to capture the feeling then. The flying feeling of it all. If I could bottle it and deliver it without side effects, we would all be brilliantly productive and clever and giving.

And we would breathe. We would breath so clearly and well.