HOLDING OUR BREATH
By Madeleine Kate McGowan, Safina Center Launchpad Fellow
This is a short and translated version of an essay written by Madeleine Kate McGowan
for the Danish publication Himlen Over Kina (The Sky above China) - published
by Vild Maskine in 2021. As a part of a COVID-19 text compilation.
Car. Photo: Anton Falck Gansted
“Remember to breathe”
I close my eyes as he whispers this in my ear. In that moment I realize that I have not noticed my breath in a very long time. I sense the air moving slowly through my nostrils, through my throat and into my lungs. An air I borrow as long as my breath lasts. Breathing as an exchange between me as a human being and this fluid entity, Air. An entity that lends itself to me every time I breathe it. An entity in which I live inside, and which lives inside me. That breathes me as I breathe it. An exchange. An intimate relationship. We humans are born into air. We are creatures of air. Air is inside us and around us throughout our lives. It fills the pores of our skin, runs with our blood, touches us every day. To live is to live in air. But we forget this fluid being. Maybe because it is not usually visible. Air cares for us, cares for Life, but do we care for Air?
As I move with these sensations, I am lying on the floor of my apartment in the midst of a strict lockdown. I have not been able to travel for a very long time. My film work is on hold. But I am able to travel in my thoughts.
I land in a moment, several years back. There I stand, with my face towards the sky, wearing a light dress. The air is heavy, warm and dry. My eyes are closed until I open them. White polished stones around us. Shiny pillars and arches stretch above us. A sharp light, where shadows are shaped as newly painted calligraphy. I am together with Sarim Fayad, my new friend from Damascus. Sarim Fayad is not his real name. His real name is kept secret to protect his true identity, as he is wanted by the Assad-regime.
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We are all holding our breath now.
Within the past year it has become clear how we have forgotten to be present within Air. And Air is now written in the collective. It is making itself felt. Making itself seen. Air is now written in ash, voice, scream, stock collapse, hisses, slime, coal and coding. Air is whispered from a lonely death-bed and sung from the deepest rainforest. Shivered through root networks, run across soils as hardened blood, tight as a sandstorm, blown as letters of a climate collapse, resting as yellow fog, rolled over vocal chords, choked midst teargas, twirled as a hurricane and shaped as writing on cardboard signs at the largest mass demonstrations in the history of the human species.
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Broken clay. Photo: Madeleine Kate McGowan
It stopped raining two years before the first demonstration. They say it was climate crisis related and the worst drought in endless times. The soil of Syria was cracked. The air was hot and dry. The farmer watched as the plants died. The harvest never happened. Corn was never sent to the mill, which never became flour, not becoming the bread, the bread that was never eaten.
So the bread prices exploded, the first indicator of a coming revolution.
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Sarim and I are on our way to the Jordanian/Syrian border, to donate food for the large camps that are set up there. We drive for a while without talking. Drinking some thick and strong coffee while watching the dusty landscape roll by. Then suddenly Sarim starts talking about his birthplace.
Tree. Photo: Madeleine Kate McGowan
“Damascus is a flat city. There is one mountain that holds the view of the entire city. Since I was a teenager I used to go there, to that mountain. The landscape there is magical. You can see all the lights from there. At night there are these pulses of light. You realize you are a part of the life down there. It gives you some perspective. It gives you a chance to think about deeper things. Like the relationship with yourself and the things you believe in. You know … freedom varies from one person to another. For me freedom is something that comes from your inside, it is not dependent on the external. Even if you have the freedom of speech, you can be restricted from within yourself. And on the contrary, if you are living in a constrained environment, but yet you still feel free inside, then nothing can stop you.”
I imagined the young Sarim together with all his friends from the revolution, together in Um Firas' Damascus apartment. Back then when they were all alive and on their way out to colour the lakes yellow, purple and pink. A poetic action as a message to the Assad-regime. A symptom and a calling for change. Sarim had told me, that he had lost contact with most of his friends from back then.
”Sarim, what would you tell your friends from the revolution, if they were all gathered in front of you today?” I asked him.
“I would tell them - you are amazing. All the sacrifices and the efforts you have made, was out of this world. The struggle and patience you had, and still have, is something beyond imagination.
I would tell them that they are amazing, but that it wasn’t our time. It maybe wasn’t the best time. Because of the way the Syrian situation was dealt with by the international society. And I would say, we need to be more united. The people. In Syria the destructive external powers got to us through our division, by dividing us, and agitating the problems among us.
So yeah, this would be my message to them.”
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I have moved outside. Into the empty streets of Copenhagen. At this time of year, the cherry blossoms fall. I imagine that the wind isn’t there, and that the pink and white leaves move by themselves. Like creatures in dance.