Gravity

I have been told that I have too much time on my hands and/or that I think too much for my own good. There have been long stretches of solitary spells during my lifetime, spells I would much have rather been out painting the town.  Since that was not a viable option, I put to work my most valuable asset, my brain.  My brain likes to consider, to turn things upside down and inside out.  It allows me to dance in a ballgown with my handsome prince though I may never have left my room.  It allows me to feel the shallow breaths of thin air as I drink in the view from the top of the Rockies while never departing my chair.  This facility of thought allows me flexibility in the conclusions I sometimes draw based on the evidence I have on hand. These moves of mental gymnastics grant me the ability to put forth theories and out-of-the-box ideas that may seem striking or odd.  They may seem ridiculous, true.  However, perhaps equally true, is that -- occasionally -- I strike a resonant nerve when I dare to put forth a here-to-for overlooked conclusion.  

My most recent of notions relates to the aging process. I believe we may be overlooking the extent to which gravity can be used to gauge age.  After being in the presence of a group of young adults recently, I noticed the tone of their skin, the perkiness of the young women’s tight physiques and the remarkable strength that was resident in the young men’s upper torsos.  In particular, I witnessed the work of Victoria’s Secret Bombshell Bra on the bust and decolletage of a scantily clad twenty-one year old woman.  An adjunct to the perspective that everything about the young women was oriented UP (including six inch stilletos lifting her higher) was the realization that the same might be said of the young men’s stalwart reproductive equipment during moments of intimacy.  At the same social engagement, there were sufficient middle-aged adults to warrant a superficial comparison.  As a lot (myself included, of course), gravity has set to work on jowls, buttocks, thighs and breasts. The male variety of our species suffers equally from the effects of gravity.  If not, why Viagra?  I was not drinking, but I noticed that if I squinted and looked at the forty and fifty year olds, our faces seem a bit like wax, just beginning to melt. I made particular note of the most aged among us, those over seventy and eighty.  As a bunch, they seemed the most comfortable in their skin.  However, I could not stop myself from thinking that death represents gravity’s victory over us.  A burial or a cremation returns us to ground zero.  

The take-away from this wild rumination was ---drumroll, please --  take care of ourselves. Give a nod of awareness to gravity, it will go to work regardless of our most valiant of efforts.  The best approach to life is to enjoy it at any altitude.