Animal World

Breathing

Someone has stuck the Nine Rules for Living on our fridge with a couple of fancy magnets. The inevitable response was not long coming.

'Breathe well?' Amanda peered at it and slowly stirred sugar into her coffee. 'What is this nonsense?'

'Oh, it probably makes good sense,' I said.

'Explain.'

'Well, if you think about how you breathe, if you take it seriously, then you're not likely to smoke, are you? And you're not likely to get too overweight either because you can't breathe that well if you're very fat. And again, breathing fully is one of the recommended ways to manage stress, so it's good for you that way too.'

'Hmmph.' She stared at me, suspiciously.

'And of course good breathing is a key to health in the East. Westerners get all hung up on what they eat but Easterners, yogis and so on, are much more concerned about how they breathe. It's an important aspect of meditiaton.'

'You subscribe to this stuff, do you?"

'Well, partly. Maybe.'

'Typical,' she said. 'Never able to commit yourself.'

'I've always found commitment a very tricky business,' I said.

'Why?'

'Because there's always another point of view. Today's passionate conviction might be tomorrow's blushing embarrassment.'

'So you didn't stick this thing up here?'

'No,' I said. 'I think it was Janice.'

'What makes you say that?'

'The magnets mainly.'

One was a daffodil yellow Betty Boop, the other what looked like a royal blue leprachaun holding a four-leafed shamrock.

'Yes, that makes sense. She's right into all this New Age rubbish. Anything touchy-feely's meat and drink to her.'

'Oh, I don't think this is touchy-feely,' I said.

'No?' She peered at the list again. 'Avoid clocks?! Well, we know were that gets you don't we.'

She was talking about Felix. That, however, is another story.

24 October 2008

© Chris Else 2008