This Won't Be one of My Favourite Things....

You could call me a klutz. Been called worse. But never to my face. I could never have been an actress because, honest truth, I would have banged into the furniture. If you were to walk down the road with me, I would gravitate towards your side of the pavement. Not with any determined intention to get smoochily close to you, it would just happen.
I once heard a correspondent talking on the radio saying that when he was in an airport in Japan despite the vast numbers, everyone glided around each other, scarcely touching. When he had landed in a quiet airport somewhere in Australia, a guy ran across the tarmac and managed to bump into him with a "Sorry, mate!"
You see, I understand that Australian because he and I suffer from the same thing: a poor lack of proprioception. There we are, incontrovertible admission in print. It is one of my favourite words, proprioception, partly because very few people know what it means and partly because I ain't got any. Or very little at least. Proprioception is a sense of where you are in space. I never know fully where I am, so hence my bruised thighs and knees.
But I've been reading about a new sport called Parkour. This is all about urban acrobatics, flinging yourself across natural terrain, running and jumping and climbing. It started in France, would you know, as L'art du deplacement. And guess what? It develops your proprioceptivity.
So scan the sky-line and beware of large hurtling object heading your way.
But it won't be me.
I'll be huddling in my Parker and trying to keep to a straight line on the pavement.

Feeling grounded...