This was the year of breathing dangerously, a time when the act of moving air in and out of the lungs became a threat, when the most elemental of human body functions became a death sentence to the unaware, the unlucky, and the heedless.
In the year of breathing dangerously isolation nation made prison an apt metaphor for daily life, made friends and family disseminators of deadly particles as well as love.
In the year of breathing dangerously I watched my father die gasping for air in a hospital room as a I stared out from a make shift hazmat suit that couldn’t protect me from sorrow and regret.
In the year of breathing dangerously “I can’t breathe” was a slogan, a rallying cry, an epitaph for dead friends and mentors, for strangers whose public demises were fueled by the cruelty of denial, denial, denial of science, responsibility, reality.
In the year of breathing dangerously Sam Cooke’s change came and altered how we see, what and who we trust and can believe in, where and how we live – as the ropes connecting us became frail digital threads. We yearned -- I yearned -- for the wine of life and sipped from our cup of memory, remembering days and nights of people jammed together, ecstatic and high, full of food and jokes, and the simple, endless pleasures of dance with the bass giving us life like air.
The year of breathing dangerously is ending but comes next requires a belief our next inhale will not be our last.