Respite, Respire, and the Radical Act of Holding Space
Look up.
Somewhere, a family of trees pickets outside a skyscraper.
A pair of benches carves out a mirror haven for two.
Somewhere else, a plug dangles unbothered,
not being used,
and still, the world continues.
I was alone when I saw this.
You weren’t there.
But you could be.
Could’ve been.
~
A hop, a skip away,
a sign diverts trucks.
Which means someone thought about the size,
the weight of what they carry.
There’s a place for them to go.
Sometimes I wish life worked like that—
with signs that show us what to do
with what we carry,
with what the world gives us to carry.
A friend wrote a poem echoing that question:
Are we even built to receive?
To hold the hard things?
To be both container and release?
Sometimes I wonder
if comfort lives in the space between hop and skip,
a quiet step, nearly missed,
where possibility waits.
~
I’ve been seeing more and more people
who couldn’t be prouder to be American.
They wear it on their shirts.
Some wave flags the size of their truck beds.
And I’m happy for them.
But I also wonder—
why didn’t I see that same pride
when Obama was elected president?
You know what I’m getting at.
And the truth is,
their gear doesn’t make it look like life has gotten better.
So I have to wonder:
Is this a case of “If I’m deeply unhappy,
I want you to be, too”?
Because that’s a tragic waste of time and energy—
energy we could be using
to actually make things better together.
But let me be clear:
this isn’t a call to gather around a campfire and sing.
I know better than to invite those who hate me to dinner.
And I’m not wasting time hating them in return.
Some people love to hate.
Which means they’re an oxymoron.
And I’ve learned not to argue with contradictions
disguised as conviction.
There are two songs titled “Open Arms.”
One by Journey.
One by Tracy Chapman.
Both are incredible love songs.
But only one of them
sounds like it could be an American anthem.
~
I’ve been thinking about the slam competition
I got to witness over two days.
The amount of open arms in that room:
overwhelming, healing.
Sometimes the poet’s foot
wasn’t even off the last step of the stage
before they were wrapped in embrace after embrace.
Just when you think you’ve had it hard,
someone reminds you:
it’s hard out here for a lot of people.
And removing people
is not the solution.
The literal definition of respire
is to inhale and exhale breath
for the purpose of life.
The word respite echoes that:
a brief break or relief
from something distressful.
So when you offer someone respite,
you are allowing them to breathe again—
not just inhale and exhale,
but to do it with purpose,
with intention,
for the sake of living
and not simply surviving.
~
I hope this entry has been a kind of respite for you.
I keep thinking about that truck and that sign,
how it didn’t say the truck didn’t belong.
It just needed another way through.
Because of the size.
Because of the weight.
Because of what it was carrying.
It was still on a journey,
still part of the road,
just taking a different way through.
Sometimes we all need
a different way to exist
alongside the others.
An open arm is a good start.
So is a sign that says there’s still room for you,
and we’re committed to finding another way.
In conversation, always,
Enzo 🙏🏾❤️
Thank you Enzo. This is beautiful