Cemre Cemali, Summer's Blue Feelings
Breathe.
Mason Cashman
My first therapist had me sit in an oversized beige armchair, the warm sunlight bathing the back of my head as I faced towards him, the door, the clock. In our one-hour sessions, with my feet just barely touching the floor as I sunk into the cushions, I could feel him peering at me over the glass coffee table adorned with a single box of tissues and a modernist vase of dried eucalyptus as I closed my eyes.
Inhale for five. Hold for five. Exhale for five. Repeat.
He brought me down to a regular breath, normal pulse, guided me through breathing while envisioning the pulsation of light around a sphere, a cube, expanding and growing brighter as I inhaled, dimming and contracting with each release. In a way, it helped.
At fifteen, we built a management scheme for what was then diagnosed as generalized anxiety disorder, for mitigating the duration of a panic shutdown, for recalling a mood swing about to be deployed, all through the pace and timing of air into my lungs.
Mason Cashman
My first therapist had me sit in an oversized beige armchair, the warm sunlight bathing the back of my head as I faced towards him, the door, the clock. In our one-hour sessions, with my feet just barely touching the floor as I sunk into the cushions, I could feel him peering at me over the glass coffee table adorned with a single box of tissues and a modernist vase of dried eucalyptus as I closed my eyes.
Inhale for five. Hold for five. Exhale for five. Repeat.
He brought me down to a regular breath, normal pulse, guided me through breathing while envisioning the pulsation of light around a sphere, a cube, expanding and growing brighter as I inhaled, dimming and contracting with each release. In a way, it helped.
At fifteen, we built a management scheme for what was then diagnosed as generalized anxiety disorder, for mitigating the duration of a panic shutdown, for recalling a mood swing about to be deployed, all through the pace and timing of air into my lungs.
***
I lie on my back and listen to Wim Hof’s thick Dutch accent guide me through the recording. The butterflies of self-embarrassment tickle my ribs as I inhale with my belly, my chest, and all the way to my head. Or maybe it’s just the Method itself working. I feel utterly ridiculous despite the fact that I am now a grown adult in my own home, on my own couch, alone. I repeat the inhalations for ten counts, his suggested minimum. My fingertips are tingly, my head a bit light, the room seems brighter, calmer. I somehow think I understand my own body again, though I fear it won’t last.
***
My chest heaves as I gasp, or try to.
I cannot focus, and so I breathe. Or try to. Everything in my head flies in circles around my intended destination, but never quite reaching it, never approaching for landing. But I try. For some reason or another, this rotation will occasionally halt in an abrupt lurch. Circles will continue in paths and swirls around me, wind and leaves and debris kicked up by the encroaching storm clouds will antagonize and holler, but I am stopped. I do my best to stand.
I usually try to focus, to remain upright, to stay in the eye and watch the thunderous walls close in, devilish and dusty and choking with sand and powder and words left unsaid but overprocessed, tumbled and dinged and dented to irreparability.
These are the days I wish my prescriptions worked better.
I want so desperately to remain in the calm cool air and move forward, remain in the eye of the storm, never dare to touch the walls, telling myself it is acceptable to be selfish if it means saving myself. I know I need to do the work, put pen to paper, complete the task at hand. But the winds do not calm, regardless of how ardently I plead to myself. I am the master of my own storm, or so I’m told, yet the wind is rarely at my back.
The eye of the hurricane is the storm’s point of lowest air pressure; quiet, serene, yet I feel the quaking under my feet of the rubble falling around me. The air is ripped from my lungs and I am telling myself to breathe. Just breathe. Look at your hands, count your fingers. Inhale, five on left. Exhale, five on right. Breathe. The walls are not moving inward, they are dissipating, they are falling, the storm is fading, the air is calming. The storm is passing. The eye is growing. Breathe. I can regain my footing on my own.
You’re fine, my boyfriend would say, grasping my shoulder as I lean to the wall, the tiles cold on my bare feet, knees hugged to my chest, eyes glazed, focused on some point ad infinitum, lacking presence. It isn’t real anyway. It’s in your head.
But that is real. It’s real to me. And so is the wreckage.
I cannot focus, and so I breathe. Or try to. Everything in my head flies in circles around my intended destination, but never quite reaching it, never approaching for landing. But I try. For some reason or another, this rotation will occasionally halt in an abrupt lurch. Circles will continue in paths and swirls around me, wind and leaves and debris kicked up by the encroaching storm clouds will antagonize and holler, but I am stopped. I do my best to stand.
I usually try to focus, to remain upright, to stay in the eye and watch the thunderous walls close in, devilish and dusty and choking with sand and powder and words left unsaid but overprocessed, tumbled and dinged and dented to irreparability.
These are the days I wish my prescriptions worked better.
I want so desperately to remain in the calm cool air and move forward, remain in the eye of the storm, never dare to touch the walls, telling myself it is acceptable to be selfish if it means saving myself. I know I need to do the work, put pen to paper, complete the task at hand. But the winds do not calm, regardless of how ardently I plead to myself. I am the master of my own storm, or so I’m told, yet the wind is rarely at my back.
The eye of the hurricane is the storm’s point of lowest air pressure; quiet, serene, yet I feel the quaking under my feet of the rubble falling around me. The air is ripped from my lungs and I am telling myself to breathe. Just breathe. Look at your hands, count your fingers. Inhale, five on left. Exhale, five on right. Breathe. The walls are not moving inward, they are dissipating, they are falling, the storm is fading, the air is calming. The storm is passing. The eye is growing. Breathe. I can regain my footing on my own.
You’re fine, my boyfriend would say, grasping my shoulder as I lean to the wall, the tiles cold on my bare feet, knees hugged to my chest, eyes glazed, focused on some point ad infinitum, lacking presence. It isn’t real anyway. It’s in your head.
But that is real. It’s real to me. And so is the wreckage.
***
I can reach up to push his hand away, or whisper our safe word. But often I just take it. Separate sides of a double bed are miles apart when he refuses to touch, a brush on the shoulder met with a shove away. The panic of giving what he wants is easier than the ache of the aftermath of saying no; I’ve learned to breathe through the panic.
His shallow breaths meet tone with the fan’s hum, in rhythm with the slightest rise and fall of his ribs under my arm. It felt strange to state absolutes in the nude, I remember the line reading. Was this an absolute? I don’t know. And so I remain silent. My feet land on the cold tile floor, his sweatshirt pulled over my head, the carton swiped off the dresser, the lighter from his bag.
I lean against the support beam of the awning, concrete and pebbles punctuating calloused midsummer soles, staring into the thick woods lining the driveway. Maybe I expect an answer to emerge from the tree line, from my exhaled smoke as it catches the breeze and drifts off, from the acrid scent of tobacco lingering on my hands. One, the butt pressed out, and a second, letting the nicotine finally work its way to my head, my eyes, seeing the wind, seeing the smoke carried away into the trees. I conclude that no, an answer is never that simple, never that easy.
I wash my hands before returning to bed, as I do every time, most nights by now. And I stop in the bedroom doorway, listening for his breathing, forgetting my own.
His shallow breaths meet tone with the fan’s hum, in rhythm with the slightest rise and fall of his ribs under my arm. It felt strange to state absolutes in the nude, I remember the line reading. Was this an absolute? I don’t know. And so I remain silent. My feet land on the cold tile floor, his sweatshirt pulled over my head, the carton swiped off the dresser, the lighter from his bag.
I lean against the support beam of the awning, concrete and pebbles punctuating calloused midsummer soles, staring into the thick woods lining the driveway. Maybe I expect an answer to emerge from the tree line, from my exhaled smoke as it catches the breeze and drifts off, from the acrid scent of tobacco lingering on my hands. One, the butt pressed out, and a second, letting the nicotine finally work its way to my head, my eyes, seeing the wind, seeing the smoke carried away into the trees. I conclude that no, an answer is never that simple, never that easy.
I wash my hands before returning to bed, as I do every time, most nights by now. And I stop in the bedroom doorway, listening for his breathing, forgetting my own.
***
Wim Hof has kind eyes, an adventurer’s build, and a protagonist’s mindset. The Dutch Ice Man, whose world records abound for cold exposure and endurance, seems to know something many don’t about using breathing to control well-being, metabolism, body temperature. Granted, for as many scientific articles and video essays espousing his practices as medical breakthroughs, there are twice those that say he’s a quack. There are medical practitioners who claim Hof’s methods are dangerous.
His method, creatively titled The Wim Hof Method, is one of tactility. Such a method is available to be learned in person via multi-thousand-dollar retreats led by trained staff or Hof himself, or free breathing-instruction YouTube videos. Feeling your body reinvigorated, sensing the oxygen in your blood. Hof states that his breathing exercises will lead to a more alkaline pH of one’s blood, for a brief period. This, supposedly, results in less damaging stress responses from the body, a heightened state of functionality of the immune system, and significantly increased capabilities of thermoregulation, among dozens of other claims of restoration and well-being.
Do I believe any of these claims, these supposed products of simple breathing exercises? Not necessarily, not without verification.
I just needed something to hold on to.
His method, creatively titled The Wim Hof Method, is one of tactility. Such a method is available to be learned in person via multi-thousand-dollar retreats led by trained staff or Hof himself, or free breathing-instruction YouTube videos. Feeling your body reinvigorated, sensing the oxygen in your blood. Hof states that his breathing exercises will lead to a more alkaline pH of one’s blood, for a brief period. This, supposedly, results in less damaging stress responses from the body, a heightened state of functionality of the immune system, and significantly increased capabilities of thermoregulation, among dozens of other claims of restoration and well-being.
Do I believe any of these claims, these supposed products of simple breathing exercises? Not necessarily, not without verification.
I just needed something to hold on to.
***
American gas stations are judgmental places. If only one thing is for certain, the embarrassment of your mother calling attention to your vices is easier to navigate than the shame of Peggy from church seeing you buy menthols. At least your mother is somewhat predictable.
As Marina Abramovic sat still-eyed and motionless in her 2010 performance piece The Artist Is Present, it was noted by multiple observers and critics that her participants became exasperated, flustered, shallow of breath. She, however, rarely faltered in her presentation of self, of composure, of steadiness. In facing uncertainty, she held the gaze of her participants, allowing them to gaze at her, with her, and through her. She allowed her participants to be active parts of the piece, breathing with her in that moment of shared observation and presence. Through silence, simply by viewing and breathing, the observer became the observed.
On the opening day of this seventy-seven-day performance, her contemptuous soulmate, former lover, and once tumultuously mutual muse surprises her in the space. With Ulay, with whom she had not spoken for over twenty years since their last parting, in the seat across from her, Abramovic raises her gaze to meet her participant’s, and finds his. Her breath becomes short, startled, but she smiles, and her eyes dampen. The two exchange silent nods, acknowledgements of a past and a present, a history of frustration, understanding, communication, miscommunication, burden, and balance.
Yet as they hold each other's gaze, observers of the performance note that they gradually match each other’s breathing. They share an inhalation and exhalation of timing, grounding themselves in this world, a steady rhythm of being in mutuality. Breathing to connect one to another, acknowledging the shared air of the space, acknowledging the shared breathing of our experience, acknowledging that we as people must have air to simply be.
In watching video recordings of the piece, I recognize that Abramovic is not intending to match the rhythms and patterns of breath and release of her participant observer, but simply is. I recognize myself.
The match of feeling, the match of experience, sharing in the rhythm of the world of our breath and of our known spaces.
So I lay with him in bed, but I cannot match his breathing. His is shallow, short, with brevity in structure and in size. He is, observably, of a different pattern–his breaths are half mine, my inhale is both his breath and release, his chest rising and falling under my hand, my chest pressed to his back.
I do not know and cannot discern why or how he breathes so quickly, decides so quickly, acts so quickly. That is not my knowledge to have. I cannot match him. And so instead, we breathe separately, and I feel him, present, apart, under my hand and within my arms but away on his own.
He often fell asleep before I did, and I would imagine still does.
On the opening day of this seventy-seven-day performance, her contemptuous soulmate, former lover, and once tumultuously mutual muse surprises her in the space. With Ulay, with whom she had not spoken for over twenty years since their last parting, in the seat across from her, Abramovic raises her gaze to meet her participant’s, and finds his. Her breath becomes short, startled, but she smiles, and her eyes dampen. The two exchange silent nods, acknowledgements of a past and a present, a history of frustration, understanding, communication, miscommunication, burden, and balance.
Yet as they hold each other's gaze, observers of the performance note that they gradually match each other’s breathing. They share an inhalation and exhalation of timing, grounding themselves in this world, a steady rhythm of being in mutuality. Breathing to connect one to another, acknowledging the shared air of the space, acknowledging the shared breathing of our experience, acknowledging that we as people must have air to simply be.
In watching video recordings of the piece, I recognize that Abramovic is not intending to match the rhythms and patterns of breath and release of her participant observer, but simply is. I recognize myself.
The match of feeling, the match of experience, sharing in the rhythm of the world of our breath and of our known spaces.
So I lay with him in bed, but I cannot match his breathing. His is shallow, short, with brevity in structure and in size. He is, observably, of a different pattern–his breaths are half mine, my inhale is both his breath and release, his chest rising and falling under my hand, my chest pressed to his back.
I do not know and cannot discern why or how he breathes so quickly, decides so quickly, acts so quickly. That is not my knowledge to have. I cannot match him. And so instead, we breathe separately, and I feel him, present, apart, under my hand and within my arms but away on his own.
He often fell asleep before I did, and I would imagine still does.
***
I felt warm, she said, I could feel my fingers tingling, my chest getting warmer.
We sat in the grey morning light on the living room carpet, the mist pattering on the lake outside.
We all rose at sunrise on Sunday at 6:00, and gathered our half dozen selves wrapped in blankets and comfort. Grey-blue haze sitting on the water, the hills obscured just a mile away, the morning was damp and cold, but we had made a plan, an agreement, and we would stick to it. This was about letting go, about moving forward. We’d come this far, so couldn’t back out now.
Scattered on our backs on the decades-old Persian rug, family knickknacks and furniture observing, our breaths rose and fell with the timing of Wim Hof’s narration. “Wim Hof Breathing for Beginners: A Three-Cycle Meditation.” Eleven minutes. We followed his instructions with ease, his encouragements of continuation and support being those of a mentor, a teacher, a self-believed healer.
Is this new-age medicine, holistic healing, a naturalist philosophy I’ve just yet to accept as such? My new therapist chuckles to himself, his webcam objectively off-kilter as usual, and I watch his thoroughly graying eyebrows bunch and bounce above the brass frames of his glasses–as that is the only thing of him I can see. Weekly telehealth psychotherapy: modern western medicine. He pushes me to think of the meaning behind the practice, how there is, in many cases, some merit to these therapies we see breaking into the Western medical canon today.
I describe to him Wim Hof’s method, to which he chimes Oh, so like the Tao Buddhist monks before intense martial arts. This I’ve yet to verify. You over-oxygenate your blood, and it makes your mind a bit sharper, your reflexes a bit nimbler, and yes I’d say it probably does increase your body’s tolerance to cold.He leans back, two green eyes appearing behind the entirety of the thick lenses, and the eyebrows furrow. So, did you enjoy it?
It was 6:30 in the morning on a Sunday at the end of September, and it was raining. I stepped out of my room in magenta swim shorts and a grey band tee, barefoot. But I felt warm. My hands tingled a bit, my legs felt limber. Coming downstairs, they were all on the front steps already, under the porch and protected from the rain, facing the sand, the lake, the cold, the object of this little bout of manic genius and morbid curiosity and new friends who probably thought I was crazy and I thought were surprisingly agreeable and the final step of the thing I was telling myself was finally allowing myself to breathe on my own.
We gathered towels and placed them in strategic spots for retrieval.
And we ran.
Bounded down the steps and across the beach and through the mist and breaking the placid glass of the water’s surface. Massive hectic splashes and startling motion, and a bird shouting his awareness of our presence, and a laughter. Laughter. Smiling giggling yelling joyous awkward unkempt present happy laughter.
Dive under!
And so I did.
Cold water streaming across my face, my arms, my hands and my legs, down my body. Propelled forward by the shock of the cold, the smile, the warmth, the air in my lungs and the oxygen in my blood and the freedom that comes with letting yourself try something for the sake of just finally trying.
I was warm. We all were warm. We treaded water for a few moments, what felt like so long and yet was a blip in our timelines, pale hands against dark water against grey sky against white mist.
I’d feel freer if I were naked . . . you know what, fuck it–I will, why not? She slipped off her swimsuit, and swam holding it. Comfort in platonic trust. It was 6:35 at foggy daybreak, in the rain, swimming in a cold spring lake, breathing in fresh cool air and smiling, laughing, being.
Why not just be free?
We sat in the grey morning light on the living room carpet, the mist pattering on the lake outside.
We all rose at sunrise on Sunday at 6:00, and gathered our half dozen selves wrapped in blankets and comfort. Grey-blue haze sitting on the water, the hills obscured just a mile away, the morning was damp and cold, but we had made a plan, an agreement, and we would stick to it. This was about letting go, about moving forward. We’d come this far, so couldn’t back out now.
Scattered on our backs on the decades-old Persian rug, family knickknacks and furniture observing, our breaths rose and fell with the timing of Wim Hof’s narration. “Wim Hof Breathing for Beginners: A Three-Cycle Meditation.” Eleven minutes. We followed his instructions with ease, his encouragements of continuation and support being those of a mentor, a teacher, a self-believed healer.
Is this new-age medicine, holistic healing, a naturalist philosophy I’ve just yet to accept as such? My new therapist chuckles to himself, his webcam objectively off-kilter as usual, and I watch his thoroughly graying eyebrows bunch and bounce above the brass frames of his glasses–as that is the only thing of him I can see. Weekly telehealth psychotherapy: modern western medicine. He pushes me to think of the meaning behind the practice, how there is, in many cases, some merit to these therapies we see breaking into the Western medical canon today.
I describe to him Wim Hof’s method, to which he chimes Oh, so like the Tao Buddhist monks before intense martial arts. This I’ve yet to verify. You over-oxygenate your blood, and it makes your mind a bit sharper, your reflexes a bit nimbler, and yes I’d say it probably does increase your body’s tolerance to cold.He leans back, two green eyes appearing behind the entirety of the thick lenses, and the eyebrows furrow. So, did you enjoy it?
It was 6:30 in the morning on a Sunday at the end of September, and it was raining. I stepped out of my room in magenta swim shorts and a grey band tee, barefoot. But I felt warm. My hands tingled a bit, my legs felt limber. Coming downstairs, they were all on the front steps already, under the porch and protected from the rain, facing the sand, the lake, the cold, the object of this little bout of manic genius and morbid curiosity and new friends who probably thought I was crazy and I thought were surprisingly agreeable and the final step of the thing I was telling myself was finally allowing myself to breathe on my own.
We gathered towels and placed them in strategic spots for retrieval.
And we ran.
Bounded down the steps and across the beach and through the mist and breaking the placid glass of the water’s surface. Massive hectic splashes and startling motion, and a bird shouting his awareness of our presence, and a laughter. Laughter. Smiling giggling yelling joyous awkward unkempt present happy laughter.
Dive under!
And so I did.
Cold water streaming across my face, my arms, my hands and my legs, down my body. Propelled forward by the shock of the cold, the smile, the warmth, the air in my lungs and the oxygen in my blood and the freedom that comes with letting yourself try something for the sake of just finally trying.
I was warm. We all were warm. We treaded water for a few moments, what felt like so long and yet was a blip in our timelines, pale hands against dark water against grey sky against white mist.
I’d feel freer if I were naked . . . you know what, fuck it–I will, why not? She slipped off her swimsuit, and swam holding it. Comfort in platonic trust. It was 6:35 at foggy daybreak, in the rain, swimming in a cold spring lake, breathing in fresh cool air and smiling, laughing, being.
Why not just be free?