Life on the Moon

We have a canister vacuum.  The body is heavy and attaches to a hose, which is not so heavy, which attaches to a heavy head that does all the work.  It is a brontosaurus with a huge brain and skull far too heavy for it's long spindly neck.  It would have been forced to live on bugs, ants, and anything low-growing, poor thing.  By comparison, I loved our canister vacuum in Japan, it was light, easy to use, and cleaned up the tatami mat floors to my satisfaction.   I miss it, but have to acknowledge it wouldn't have done much for our carpeting here in the states.  I know our cumbersome brontosaurus is the way to go; while it doesn't suit me, it certainly matches the rest of, well, everything stateside.

Japan felt like the moon because so many things were more petit (my notebooks, the furniture we carried home, appliances, my 7/11 lunches, Husband, me, even the handouts I made for my students were lighter-weight paper) than in the states.

My siblings and I used to scotch tape our ankles, restricting blood flow to our feet, and would gleefully spend the time (between wrapping our ankles and my mom discovering our slightly-pale-purple feet  with horror) walking with a slow and jerky gait on the couch exclaiming, "We're walking on the moon!"

I yearned desperately (excuse the redundancy) to live on the moon (or underwater) for much of my childhood.   It would be lighter to me, but not the bleeper people.  But I know I would eventually adjust.  Eventually an easy step would become normal, and my muscles would atrophy compared to the heavy life on earth.  Moving back to earth would be comparatively crushing, even my heart would find it hard to move my newly heavy blood through my heavy arteries.

Moving from the earth to the moon was easy, actually pleasant for me (physically, if not culturally).  Coming back is still hard, even four years later everything things heavier and cumbersome to me.  Life on the moon has also left a contrasting effect on Husband.  After spending 3 years spent feeling like a grizzly bear attempting tea time with elves, he sighs with contentment whenever he finds he has more than enough leg room to spare in almost any vehicle.