It is impossible to breathe slowly and rush anything else.

From Alfred’s journal

A man on the bench by the hardware store spent forty minutes trying to open a jar of something, and the longer he worked at it the faster his hands went and the less the lid moved. Then he stopped, sat back, let his shoulders down, and took two long breaths before trying again. It opened. For years I thought the breathing was a reward for having calmed down, something that arrived after. It is impossible to breathe slowly and rush anything else; the body will not hold both at once, and whichever one you pick, the other goes. I have never seen a bird hurry a long breath either, though we take very small ones and it may not be the same test.