Picturebook: Grasping at air
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    Photo by Blake Sobczak / North by Northwestern.

    It was that magical time in between. Between day and night when everything gets inexplicably quiet. Even the water is unreasonably still. The water that is constantly crashing, trying to wear away our little bit of land, lapping up against our shores day in and day out.

    Everything was calm and everyone was calm. It seemed like we were all in the midst of a giant sigh of relief, still in the process of exhaling. Exhaling pales in comparison to the severity with which the now-still air ransacked our now-sighing homes and stores.

    We remember it as we gingerly breathe out, as though it didn’t really happen. We try to forget the groans of the boards as they were ripped from their secured nails and screws. We ignore the gleam from windows shattered, littering the ground with shining, jagged beads of light, reflecting simultaneously the rising moon and setting sun.

    The boats have returned to their docks, at least those that were spared. People from out of town generally populate the harbor right now. They step onto our sidewalks, prepared to aid us or comfort us. But they miscalculated. Their hyperactive and highly scheduled minds, racing, speeding up their hearts and lungs, taking deep, but quick breaths and sucking in our stale sea air; air that is hanging, finally in a stasis.

    We are walking slowly, careful not to disturb the state in which nature has left us. We need to leave the blades of grass bowed over, with the force of wind, or perhaps due to frantic feet, fleeing the inevitable. They are running around, from house to house, shouting words, attempts at being helpful. They spit out questions, peer through broken windowpanes and stand atop precarious wooden porches, barely held together after the winds.

    This is not their affair. They breathe in deeply, getting a lung full of air, fresher than anything they have ever breathed. But for us, this still air is a reminder. We need to take it in slowly and let it out deliberately. We are just barely hanging on. Any sudden moves could break the stability we are just trying to grasp at.

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