Weightlessness

Being a big, heavy woman, I tend to be slow moving or not moving at all. My ankle, knee and hip joints sing clickety click whenever I move. I am hyper aware of my body, especially in relation to other people and my immediate environment.

However, there are times when I am weightless.

Water. Water is a fat woman's friend. The bigger you are, the more bouyant you are. I love the fact that when I jump into a pool- well I don't jump- no sense in splashing the windows on the second floor- or wade into the water at the beach, I can float to my heart's content and not sink to the bottom. I'm sure that it was something that was explained in senior Physics class. I skipped that class and took Marriage and Family instead. As it turns out, I should have took the Physics class.

Meditation. For the past 9 or 10 years, I have meditated but not as much as I should. I love when you get to that point when you can no longer feel your body, when you've detached from it. It's a light, ethereal, floating feeling. I'm told (by no one in particular) that when we pass on, we go to the afterlife/heaven/other side in full consciousness but without our bodies. My favorite assertion is that our souls will be reunited with our 'perfect' bodies at the end of time. I figure that it will probably take me an eternity to get my ideal body.

Dreaming. During my dreams and even my nightmares, I am not at all conscious of my weight. In fact, I usually have the body of my dreams. I'm sure that there is some sort of hidden meaning there or a subconscious desire. Or is this akin to something like a paralytic dreaming that he's walking.

So as I forge ahead on my path, I'll continue floating, meditating and dreaming if only to achieve that wonderful feeling of weightlessness.

The real pleasure was having the chance to enjoy being weightless, and the other was to spend some time looking out at this beautiful Earth that we're all lucky to inhabit.

Robert Crippen