A Working Mother Visits the Breath-Worker

Same Walk, Different Shoes

“Same Walk, Different Shoes” is a community writing project that Ben Wakeman organized as a practical exercise in empathy. The premise is simple. A group of writers anonymously contribute a personal story of an experience that changed their life. Each participating writer is randomly assigned one of these story prompts to turn into a short story. The story you are about to read is one from this collection. You can find all the stories from the participating writers at Catch & Release. Enjoy the walk with us.

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Before

The day I hear the voices, I wake up a little creaky. That tends to happen when it’s going to rain, a remembrance of broken bones past. Near my head, my phone murmurs a gentle tone.

I catch a glimpse of my face in the void of the unlit screen. My eyes stare back, shadowy but sure. The hard purple plastic case feels cool beneath my fingertips. My bitten nails drum the back of my phone. They sing a song of childhood self-soothing that I’ve played on many surfaces.

I can’t help myself. 

I open the camera app and switch to selfie mode. I do what I urge my young, bright students not to do. I zoom in, settle into the white cotton bedding, and look for flaws.

Saggy pores from cheap makeup ground into my face as an insecure teen. Deep lines between my brows from furrows of confusion. One big old line across my forehead from when my eyes widen in surprise. Three robust midlife chin hairs, and one junior recruit rising in the ranks.

My inventory complete, I roll out of bed, trying not to wake my husband as the frame creaks. He is a kind man. He’s the type of flexible partner who fits into the spaces of my life without throwing out his elbows. He understands that sometimes after a long day of work, I just don’t have a lot left over to offer. I do my best to make up for it on days when I’m not so tired, though. He always seems to have more than enough to give.

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I took on many responsibilities over the years, mostly because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do. No one ever told me I could choose another way. 

First came small things, like making lunch for my college boyfriend. He told me I was better at it. Eventually, he seemed to forget how to do it at all. He praised me for taking such good care of him.

Then came larger things, like a promotion at work when it made sense for the family finances, but not for my preferences. I’m an incredible teacher, but I’m not cut out for budget meetings and bureaucracy. Every day that I walk past the classroom where I used to teach and head for the principal’s office, I feel my spine get a little shorter.

I can’t afford a short spine. I’m supposed to lean in. I’m supposed to be able to handle anything. No one wants to hear from a woman who does it all, but in a bitchy way. We have to make it seem like it gives us pleasure to care, care, care.

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Enough self-examination. Time to get up. 

I step into my fuzzy red slippers and head downstairs to make coffee. That part of the day is non-negotiable. 

My hand glides down the smooth white banister that my husband repainted last year, and I smile at the thought of him. He’s still asleep, but he’ll wake up to kiss me goodbye.

This morning, I have a little extra caring in me. I grab his travel mug and fill it with hot coffee and a splash of oat milk, his favorite. I tiptoe into the bedroom and leave it on the nightstand. He shifts in bed, but doesn’t wake.

Once more down the tan-carpet stairway with the white banister, and back to the kitchen. I make a cup of coffee in my own travel mug (splash of oat milk, same as my love) before I head to the office. I try not to think about how tired I am. 

I take my phone out of my pocket and peer again at my face. The circles under my eyes have always been there, but these days they’re darker and deeper. The work has been working me lately.

It’s not like when I was younger and I could quit a job that didn’t feel good. Now there’s health insurance to think about, and retirement accounts. There are real responsibilities. There’s no running away. I never would, though. I love my son and husband too much.

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I’ll never forget the first time my son sank into my arms like I was his safety net. He wasn’t a baby. He was almost six. 

We had met once before, in a sterile social worker’s office decorated with genuine attempts at warmth. I was nervous to meet him, but my heart swelled with hope that my husband and I would make a good impression. I clutched a coloring book and some crayons, a prayer for a son’s love coating my tongue. My husband rested a sturdy palm on my knee, a steadying weight in a dizzy space.

A gentle woman in colorful, loose clothing led a little boy into the room where we waited and introduced us. His face was pale, and he had the same dark circles under his eyes that I have. He sat a judicious distance from us, in a molded maroon plastic chair sized for small souls. He looked at us with the remove of a judge. I saw in the way he pulled his limbs into himself that he needed more love than he knew how to ask for.

The many-layered expression in his wide, green eyes when his hands closed around the crayons was hard to parse. My plates of my heart shifted, and I almost hated him for how much I loved him in that moment. I knew I would never stop wanting him to be ok. I understood that I would wake up every day with his face in the dream-haze leaving my eyes. 

He waved goodbye to us at the end of that first visit, and I thought I caught him smile.

It was the next time we saw him, when it was time to propose that we could be his parents. The social worker with the colorful clothing must have let him know what we were planning to ask. He burst into the room and ran into my arms. His curly brown hair smelled like apple shampoo. I heard my husband sniffle as his long arms enclosed us all.

On days that feel like too much, I think back to the sparse room and I remember that sometimes the environment seems minimal because it’s leaving room for the feelings. I think about how much healthier I would be if I had a special room designed for each of my feelings. Then I take another sip of coffee and get back to work.

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The day I hear the voices, I have an appointment with a breath-worker who comes warmly recommended by another mother from school drop-off. I see her pristine landscaping from down the street: hard to miss, dead center in the cul-de-sac, and colorful enough to see from space. I swing my little sedan into her driveway, ashamed of the length of time it’s been since I hit up the car wash. No time to worry about that now.

She meets me at the door and invites me in, smiling from the eyes. My feet wonder at the dense pile of the entryway carpet. As I expect, she ushers me into a small room featuring a padded massage table. My eyes feast on a framed, illustrated print of “Desiderata” hanging next to the window. “No need to remove your clothing, but I find some clients enjoy taking off their shoes. Whatever is most comfortable is the right choice.”

I consider her words, then shuck off my sneakers and tuck my socks inside. My body sinks into the black vinyl padding of the table, my ears comfortably sealed into silence inside the opening for my face. I can’t help but scan what I can see of the room from my little porthole.

I notice the breath-worker’s sensible Dansko clogs come into view. Or are they Sanita? I can never tell the difference. I don’t have time in my life for East-Coast-West-Coast clog beefs. I’m taken by the pattern, an ornate embossed fleur-de-lys worked all over the shoe. I wonder if she paid full price. I’m looking for a new pair myself, but I really try to get them on sale. 

I realize she’s speaking. 

“Sorry, can you say that again?”

“Remember what we talked about last time? You get what you’re available for.”

Point taken, lady.

I slow my breath into the 4-count the practitioner taught me. In for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. Repeat until time slows and things feel manageable. I can’t count how many times this practice has come in handy in my daily life, but I know it’s more than four. 

I cycle through breaths, feeling the energy of the worker near me. There’s power in being silent, caring, and close. It’s the agar of magic. 

In for four. Hold for four. Out for four. Hold for four.

A tingle ignites in the palms of my feet and snakes its way up my legs, twining around my hipbones and swirling through my torso. It forms a hurricane that inflates my lungs and roars in my head, but I seem to be safely at its eye.

In for four. Hold for four. Out for four. Hold for four.

A bird shouts my name three times, sending me down into a welcome-home party in my soul that’s been waiting for a long while, all my self-parts crouched behind the couch with the lights turned out, ready to yell “SURPRISE!” and delight me when I arrive.

In for four. Hold for four. Out for four. Hold for four.

My parts form a loving circle around me and we jump and shout together. “Your body is your chariot. Your body is the key to your becoming.” We sing it over and over in harmony until our faces ache with the work of joy and pleasure. 

We are so victorious in our love for each other.

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After

I wish I could say everything changed after that. 

I wish I could tell you that I turned it all around. I still have days when I zoom in close on my face with my phone, the pores drawing my eye like stars in the night sky. I still have days when I say yes to something that doesn’t deserve me.

But there are other times when my cells remember the lesson, and the song the voices sang with me springs to mind.

I’m still learning the language of the lyrics, and that’s just fine.

Thank you for joining me on this walk.

May your own steps be easy.

And if they can’t be easy, may they at least be interesting.

All my best,