Don’t Forget to Breathe 

5:33 p.m. on the F-train.

 

I’m standing in a packed car, using one of the center poles as my anchor. I’m locked in my subway zone, only peripherally aware of others around me, reading The Breathing Book, by Donna Farhi, trying to figure out why I never knew I had three diaphragms in my body, not just one.

 

Suddenly someone taps my shoulder from behind. In case you didn’t know, purposeful physical contact on the subway is rare and, potentially, dangerous. 

I turn around slowly. A young white man, maybe 18, with cropped tan hair and wire-rimmed glasses, a wide smile, wearing a Mets shirt and jeans, red converse sneakers, opens his mouth.

 

I take it all in with a quick scan. My eyes widen.

“Can you spare a dollar?” he asks. 

I smile back – how could I not? – and shake my head, looking back at my book. A drawing of a man stares back at me, his lungs in blue, his ribs and torso outlined in black, gray and white. 

The young man hasn’t moved. I can feel him staring at my back. I send a glance back his way and shift so that he’s at a right angle to me. 

“You like the Saints?” he asks. 

I turn back to face him. A smile is still plastered to his lips. 

“Yeah, I do,” I say, remembering that I’m wearing a Saints hat. 

“I like ‘em all. Manning, Archie, Kenny. They’re all great.” 

“It’s a shame they never made it all the way this year,” I add. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Next year.” 

I nod. The subway stops and the doors open. The young man turns away and flows out with the crowd. 

I imagine the illustrated man in The Breathing Book’s blue lungs filling with oxygen as he breathes in and I realize I’d been tensing the muscles of my stomach, chest and shoulders. I relax each in turn and inhale, then turn the page as I exhale.

–Joe Lunievicz