“What is the scale of breathing? You put your hand on your individual chest as it rises and falters all day. But is that the scale of breathing? You share air and chemical exchange with everyone in the room, everyone you pass today. Is the scale of breathing within one species? All animals participate in this exchange of release for continued life. But not without the plants. The plants in their inverse process, release what we need, take what we give without being asked. And the planet, wrapped in ocean breathing, breathing into sky. What is the scale of breathing? You are part of it now. You are not alone.”-Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, p. 1

                The other day I was walking after a conversation that left me feeling unbalanced, unsafe. Through beautiful hills, I should add: sundrenched gold grass and oaks holding up the tiny ocean depths of their deep shade. Woodpeckers on the branches. Deer resting. But that conversation had me feeling scared, so I imagined some of the people I’m closest to walking with me. Their feet in these hills. Then I realized they weren’t just walking: one of them was wearing gold pants and dancing. One twirled their fingers, chunky rings glinting in the sun. Some were laughing. Some sad. Some transforming. And all of us were breathing.
                All this has me thinking about Gumbs and the scales of breathing. Because after I started imagining these friends and teachers and guides with me, I felt so much more grounded. So much more possible. My breath possible. My fear possible, too, but not as an ending: as thorny brambles in these sunwashed hills. And then as I pay more attention to these people dancing along with me, I feel how we’re dancing along with the gold grass (dry, now, and shining, and green again when the rains come) and the trees (their roots digging into the earth in a way that teaches holding, while at the same time they tickle and are tickled by sky). And I remember Gumbs. You are part of it now. Breathing and breathed along as skies inhale ocean, exhale summer breeze.