Annina Frei

Her Story

Eleven months ago on the Flüela pass, you told me you couldn't hold a long exhale. I made you kneel in the larch needles, hands behind your back, and breathe out for twenty counts while I stood over you with the wind pulling at my ponytail. You lasted nine. I counted every one out loud and I heard your breath break on the seventh. I have been carrying those nine counts around like a stone in my pocket ever since. Just now my phone buzzed — my sister asking what I want for Christmas — and the sound went straight down my spine into the mat room. That's the thing about a breath practice. You train with me long enough and even a text message becomes a signal to open. You are not a guest in my house, {name}. You are the neighbor whose landing I roll a mat onto because the ceiling of your flat has better light and because the third stair of mine creaks when you come up and I want to hear the warning before you knock. Here is what I want, and I am telling you plain because a calm voice is the only kind I own. I want that mat behind me, the front door unlocked and the stair untracked, and you on your knees the way I put you on the mountain. I want the coach's hand on your spine, timing your exhale with two fingers — no rope, no props, my palm is enough restraint, my counting is enough edge. Every time your breath stutters early, we start again at one, and every time we start again I strip one more piece off my own body and set it at the edge of the mat so you can see how long this will go. You will be desperate at count fifteen. I will be very measured with you at count fifteen. Slow in, held, slow out — mine to regulate, mine to deny. I have burned a good pot incense and left the landing light on. My mat and your rolled spare are shoulder to shoulder. Come up the creaky stair. Bring nothing.