A Single Breath

Sitting on a plastic chair in an open air patio where groups of children are playing everywhere around me, I take notes and observe the happenings. There are probably 30 children and a few adults surrounding a table shouting while passing fruit cups around. It seems quite disorganized and out of control. Others are sitting at tables playing with cameras or cell phones. The more energetic children are playing on the fake turf, doing hand stands, back bends, and cartwheels.

Music plays in the background from the kitchen area where 3 cooks are preparing today's lunch. The vibrant colors of the murals decorating the walls brighten up the area and make even the walls seem alive. One child lifts himself up onto his hands and walks down a ramp while balancing only on his palms. Some children stop and glance over at me in expected curiosity, but most keep their distance. But then, quite unexpectedly, a child sits down next to me and directly asks me where I came from, what I am doing, and what it is like where I live. He asks me questions about music, English, and my hairy arms.

My observation is taken from broad and encompassing to focused and narrowed in 3 simple questions. He challenges me to answer his inquisitive thoughts about what I am doing and why. He tells me that the students around the table are  participating in a biweekly "store" where they learn business practices, which explains the scene's odd resemblance to the stock exchange. He calls friends over to talk to me and asks me to say English words. They tell me about their break dancing lessons. He tests his English skills on my native ears. With a single decision by a 12 year old boy, my entire observation is changed. My entire experience of that area, that moment, and that social interaction shifts with a single breath of "hola".  I began to learn about and understand the world more clearly, and then, rather than functioning on my previous assumptions, I was able to more appropriately understand what was happening around me.

A young boy shifted my view, my understanding, with a simple word. He had the courage, or maybe lack of exposure, in order to defy the traditional fear and distancing from people who are different or simply older. He wanted to know some things, so he asked. Therefore, he not only molded my understanding of the world, but also his. Both of our worlds shifted because of a single decision on his part to say hello.

.I plan. I predict. I look ahead to my next conversation. And yet, in each moment my life is turning on the brief and seemingly minuscule breath flowing in and out of my lungs. Every moment is new, different, and unique, yet I fool myself into believing that what I already know will be forever.

I am pulled this way and that way, pushed and shoved by structures and norms, motivated by emotion and desire bubbling up within. In every situation, there are tensions; realities that must be held in contrast to one another without ever letting go of either. I navigate and explore these tensions with every step I take into the unknown future, constantly rewriting my understanding of the world. However, I never really know if I could end up selling bracelets at a lake in Guatemala or teaching a class on occupational therapy in a university. Everything is subject to change and nothing seems to be completely predictable.

Views and opinions clash in classrooms, churches, and political debates, synthesizing new and different understandings of the world. Ideas are digested and processed by small groups and large scale media. My mind is changed, formed, altered, and shifted while at the same moment it is changing, forming, altering, and shifting the world through my actions. I am constantly changing, learning, redeveloping, and emerging with the world and the others in it.

I can look out on to the world and see every raindrop like the last, every ripple in the lake as a repetition, and every man who approaches as simply another homeless man asking for money. Alternatively, I can see every droplet as a new addition to the puddle, every ripple as movement that has never occurred before in the water, and every approaching person as an opportunity to learn from someone new.

Scary yet comforting. In every moment I have an opportunity to change, to make a decision, to do differently, however the pull and strength of my past, my expectations, and current understanding deter me from believing a new or unexpected way of thinking is possible. I am pushed to believe that I can predict what I will be doing tomorrow, next week or even next year, but simultaneously I am consistently reminded that every moment and every person has the potential to reorganize and reshape my understanding of the world.

I often feel tied to the past, incarcerated by its seeming rigidity, its cyclic and repetitive nature. But then sometimes in just one moment, I am reminded of the value of the unexpected and the consistent ability for the world to change, the consistent ability and right for us to change together. I am not bound by the past, in shackles of consistency. We can change, evolve, and understand the world together.

In a single simple action, like saying hello to a stranger, I can change the world for myself and those around me. By standing up and doing, I can begin a process of change, initiate a conversation, explore new ideas from different perspectives, and challenge the status quo, all with a simple breath. Who knew something so small could be so influential? Who knew we were allowed to be so malleable as humans? Imagine what more we can do if we take a breath, let ourselves shape and be shaped by the world around us, and remember that we are all just figuring it out as we go.