All rise! The Lighter Side of Levity, the Enemy of Gravity

Is the enemy of my enemy automatically my friend? I think not

Photo by Kojirou Sasaki on Unsplash

It’s hard to remember Levity when Gravity is the law.

Outside of birds, bees, flying bugs, airplanes, and rockets, we are an earth-bound planet.

We’re the lightest before we’re born, floating in our amniotic sacs, nary a care in the world, groovin’ to the rhythm of Mom’s heartbeat, and more or less exempt from the heavy-duty gravitational pull she gets to experience carrying us.

We don’t bear our weight in our weightless world. She does. This is kinda rude when you think about it, because she has her own weight, and possibly crosses, to bear.

Does the fact that most of our amniotic fluid is our own piss kinda make up for that insult?

Once our bubble–sounds so much more poetic than sac–bursts, we’re expelled from that carefree existence, pushed and shoved head-first into the heavy pull of, you guessed it, Gravity. What a downer.

No wonder we spend most of our first year horizontal. We have to fight this invisible force just to lift our heads. And if you look at a newborn babies, their heads are huge compared to the rest of them. That evens out later. But man, that head’s hard to lift. No wonder Junior’s screaming much of the time.

Gravity may be invisible, but he’s a stalker

Following us around, throwing things under our feet — a marble, a child’s skate, a bathroom rug without that tacky stuff on the bottom, or the proverbial banana peel–trying to trip us so he can smash us down.

When we’re young Levity’s right there by our side.

When babies or little kids fall, they bounce right back up, laughing. Levity’s the angel to Gravity’s devilish nature. That laughter by the way is the other meaning of the word Levity. Right in line with my comic’s heart, she is.

The older we get, the less Levity we get when we fall.

Photo by Milo Bunnik on Unsplash

Where’d she go? Damn it!

Forgive me for the gender type-casting. Both of these forces are invisible. Since I can’t see ’em, I have no idea of their gender. And even if I could see them, looks can be deceiving. So I’m making it up as I go along. Which, as a writer, is my prerogative.

Levity’s a bit of a trickster and kind of ageist. Babies and kids are little, close to the ground, so they don’t have far to fall. We mature adults certainly don’t bounce, even when well-padded.

And we’re taller. We have further to fall.

Often breaking brittle bones, like a hip, which can be the kiss of death, or at least the beginning of a slide into a long or short decline.

Thanks, Gravity. You must be on the population control squad. But condoms and the pill are kinder, gentler ways to do that. Hint, hint.

Where was Levity when my perky breasts stopped perking?

Oh, yeah, she stopped lifting and started laughing.

Gravity turns my cheeks into jowls. And grows those flappy bat wings under my arms, making me loathe to go sleeveless on a hot day. No, Gravity is not my friend. Or my body’s.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Getting back to Levity.

We comics can be a jaded bunch.

If we had our druthers, Levity, we’d rather be lithe, light, and able to bounce. Improving our durability and sustainability over the long haul.

But no, sadly, you’ve yanked that from our bag of tricks.

So we’re left then with the darker side of Levity — our wild, whacky, and sometimes warped senses of humor. Which might leave us in a bad mood, when we’re laid up with that busted hip. Nothing funny about that.

Well, nothing obviously funny about it.

We have to look high and low for it, if it’s to be had at all. We may have to drag out that sardonic, sarcastic sister satire to get anywhere close. Don’t put it past us. We will go there in a hot minute if that’s all we’ve got, and our bum hip hurts bad enough.

What about levitation?

As much as Levity loves babies and kids, she’s a very fickle Goddess.

She’s highly selective about who gets to rise above the earth and/or walk on water. Yes, walking on water is a form of levitation. I did not know that before undertaking the heavy research I did for this missive.

My painstaking research also revealed that Levity’s criteria contain the same biases as our Eurocentric, Christian patriarchy. Unfortunately.

So Teresa of Avila, Guatama Buddha, and St. Mary of Egypt were exceptions to the rule. Jesus, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Seraphim of Sarov were some of her favorites.

If we had a more effective SCOTUS, we could get her for sexual, racial, and religious discrimination. Not to mention favoritism.

After all, neither Mother Teresa nor Ruth Bader Ginsberg could either levitate or walk on water, which meant Gravity had his way with them. Have you heard the saying, even Mother Teresa would need a parachute if she jumped out of a plane?

Photo by Bruce Christianson on Unsplash

I figured Gravity was a Republican, but Levity?

Both Agnes and RBG so deserved her blessing. ’Cause, they’re both miracle-performing saints in my book. Teresa of Calcutta especially deserved some moments of Levity as hard as she worked, don’t you think?

Given what I’ve heard about her working conditions, even an inch or two off the ground would have helped keep her sandals clean.

But no, it wasn’t meant to be.

So that’s Levity for you. More gracious than Gravity, but still fickle. I’d say trust her as high as she’ll throw you, and you’ll be safe.

No wonder so many people use substances to get high! Hell, there’s even laughing gas, which, if abused, can be deadly. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.