You learn the difference between not holding your breath and its opposite— The first takes a long time, longer than you could survive what you thought would only be a temporary lack of oxygen. The second can mean take a quick inhale and hold that bright little bubble of surprise or delight at the unexpected: quickly release it from your mouth and watch it float, then clap your hands upon receipt of a longed-for piece of good news or a loved one's return. And truly, there are things that take hardly any time; but when you're waiting, they can feel like eternity— for the light to change from yellow to green, the water in the kettle to boil. You're old enough to remember when flash photography meant a little cube filled with explosive powders and filaments attached to a Kodak instamatic camera. The photographer counted Three-two-one! before setting off a mini-bonfire of magnesium foil to flood her subjects' faces with extra light. The sharp pop made you cringe, your face contort into anything but a smile. And you remember watching on the news each rocket launch of astronauts into the sky, as ground crew voiced their solemn countdown from ten to liftoff—the heat of burning fuel and the whole world exhaling one long breath producing enough energy to propel our tinfoil-colored craft into space. *** Poet's note: I thought it fitting that I wrote a poem involving counting— as today marks my 10th year writing [at least] a poem a day!