It is simple. Breathing. Just an inhale then an exhale then a repeat of that pattern for a very long time. 80 years if you're lucky. 100 years if you're graced. I breathe often. This wasn't always the case. Plenty of day I died. Not physically of course. And not dead really. But more like disappeared, spiritually. Yes. Plenty of day I disappeared. On the subway, surrounded by the many faces, the many voices, and me, quiet, inhaled without exhale. Hoping to go unnoticed. Unjudged. Unquestioned. A few years ago [actually more like seven years ago] I figured out the impetus for those spiritual disappearances. For the days at Robert E. Lucas Intermediate School knowing that three to the third power plus four equals thirty one, but unwilling to share it with the teacher who kept looking my way, the students who seemed to dare me to be smarter than them. Yes. Seven years ago I figured out the impetus for those spiritual disappearances. And suddenly it all became clear.

It's not easy being from the Midwest. Yes, the skies can explode above you in deep melancholy gray or unfold into bird egg blue. And the forsythias and the crabapple blossoms and the barking dogs and the shimmering green of Locust Trees. That all can be quite satisfactory. Even chasing down Black Racer snakes with German-Catholic whiteboys who bathe only once a week can be apple of your pie for a good summer or two. But it is still not easy being from the Midwest. Parents who argue about layoffs and women who won't cook. Relatives who rather quote scripture than hold your hand. Brothers whose only alternative to death in a factory is serving four years in the army. Mothers who point their sons toward the sky against the wishes of a "crabs in a barrel" community.

Well... somewhere in there I learned to stop breathing. To spiritually disappear. Why? I think it's obvious: to avoid the crossfire; to fight off Christian possession; to figure out a plan of how to get to the sky and never look back.

And seven years ago, while riding the A Train uptown to Harlem I found myself inhaled without exhale. Stomach tight. Throat tight. Hands stiff. Unwilling, so unwilling to exhale. And for one minute I thought I was dead. And then realized, just in that split second, I wasn't in the Midwest anymore; there was no direct crossfire; that I had found the sky.

I guess what I'm saying is this: Often we wear armor to protect the one thing we know is special within us... our self-love. And sometimes it takes us a while to realize that the war has ended and it's high time you celebrate in the sky!

Until next time,

Keith