Homo horizontalis

Increasingly, the floor opens her arms in welcome.

I am alone at such moments - perhaps tending the wood-burning stove or retrieving a domestic object that has reached the surface of our planet (well, but for the rug, the boards and the cellar's brick flooring............). I then find myself tempted to go down onto 'all fours' and mimic our mammalian cousins (but alas, without their infinite capacity for fluidity, ease and grace). No, I rheumatically flex my hips and lumbar spine in the manner that I have been taught by my Pilates instructors.

But this is merely a device, a self-deception, because soon I have descended yet further, finding relief in allowing my burdensome trunk to make full surrender to the force of gravity.

Ah gravity - throughout our lives we fight this invisible monster. We unashamedly surrender to it in moments of Wembley or Wimbledon-winning exultation, when sleeping, when unwell and when partaking in other unmentionably playful pursuits; but generally we are encouraged, instructed even, to fight it in the spirit of our prehistoric forebears - head up, shoulders back, stomach in, knees straight. (This is the litany Diana recites for me on a regular basis).

But little by little, day by debilitating day, gravity works a crooked finger into our athletic resolve - the bent knees, the slumped shoulders, the further curving of the spine. Is it surprising then that the word itself has been leased for use when a term is needed for that which is serious, weighty and solemn?

As for me; at last I lie in splendid solitude - I roll over, onto my back, every part of me now blithely cemented to the floor. Gravity wins - and I can relax.

There is dangerous comfort here.

Time to rise - and shine?