In 1969, when the astronaut on the moon leaped up in his cumbersome suit and hopped higher than he expected, that was the first time I tried to imagine living in a different gravity. I thought about it every time my dad popped the accelerator then let it up on one of those mini hills in Southern Indiana. Momentary weightlessness then crunch. I thought about it every time I pressed back in my seat taking off on a flight. I thought about it in the arc of a swing, light, heavy, light, heavy. I loved altering gravity, even for just a moment.
Now, I live in different gravity than I used to, heavier, most of the time. I wonder, if you floated me in water, would I sink?
Mike calls it a singularity at my feet. If it were simple 2G, I would feel heavy, like on a different planet, but I’d get used to it over time. My heavier gravity shifts suddenly, sometimes makes me feel like I’m in a spiral on a rollercoaster, sometimes makes my vision turn red or black or white at the edges.
It might be fun if I had a better attitude.
Do you like that feeling the bed makes when you’ve had too much to drink?
I feel that every night.
Do you like that moment when your clarity is replaced with euphoria and you know you’ll regret this in the morning?
I feel that three or four times a day. Sometimes, I think I must exist in an alternate universe, one in which everyone around me lives in a parallel one, just out of reach, just outside the influence of my crazy singularity, never quite feeling the whirlpool I’m being sucked into. At Wild Waves, I used to love being spit out into that great toilet ride, the one that swirled me around like I was in orbit around the sun and flushed me through when I got to the center hole. I thought I could live in that spiral forever.
If I only loved being drunk, high, or spinning on a Tilt-a-Whirl all the time, I’d be having a lovely ride.
Thank you for listening, jules