Sisters, do certain parts of your anatomy, that used to stand right up and salute, now ignore the flag no matter now vigorously it’s waving? Is "perky" a word whose meaning passed you by a decade ago? From behind, do you look like you’re sitting down even when you’re standing up? Does it require a crane and two body-builders to lift you out of a deep knee bend?

If you answered "yes" to these questions, relax—you’ve been visited by our beloved Auntie Gravity, a cronish goddess Who pulls our bodies ever closer to our Mother Earth even as She lifts our spirits. Like some kind of cosmic elevator operator, Auntie Gravity dares to speak out loud the proper locations of ladies lingerie, housewares, better dresses, and the tea room. Auntie Gravity wears good cotton underwear, cooks as seldom as possible, dresses in purple (and then some), and eats and drinks what she wants to eat and drink. She lives in the present moment and tells it like it really is.

"Gal," She says, giving you Her famous Look, "where you livin’ at? The past is dead and gone. Sure, you’ve lived through quite a lot. But how good was the good ol’ days, really? How good was it, back then? Gal, you livin’ today. You deserve some respect for your long life. You got survivalocity, big-time. Don’t you forget that. An’ don’t you let no one else forget it, either.

"Your face look like a road map?" Auntie Gravity says. "Well, jus’ you remember—all them lines come from some place significant. You been places and you done stuff—you wanna trade places with some skinny, smooth-faced child who don’t know nothin’? Each one a them lines is a line in the poem of your life, and maybe yours is an epic poem. Ever thought about that? Hmmm? Not all epics gotta be about men wavin’ phallic symbols an’ conquerin’ folks. Hmmm?

"What you done in your long life?" She asks, and She pokes Her pointy finger at your heart, "what you proud of? What you ashamed of? What you learned? What you got to tell the young ‘uns? Gal, you got wisdom you don’t even remember you got. What you gotta do is, you gotta pass it around. You hear Me? Pass it around, what you know, what you’ve learned. Help bring up some little sisters in the proper fashion.

"An’ you jus’ start thinkin’ of them lines," She says, "as your Auntie Gravity’s rainbows, an’ remember all the colors of what you done in your life. An’ where’s that ol’ somewhere over the rainbow? In a land full of midgets, that’s where, mental midgets that don’t know what you know. Buncha mental midgets don’t know who you are. Believe you Me, you don’t even wanna go there.

"An’ don’t you dare say hot flashes, either," Auntie Gravity says. "Those’r power surges! As the cat told the cockroach, toujours gai, toujours gai, there’s a dance in the old dame yet. Don’t you forget that. So maybe you don’t dance so fast anymore. So what? Now your dance got the power. Maybe your monthly blood’s done dried up, but, Gal, you still got the juice. Got it mor’n ever before, got it straighter, got it deeper, got it stronger, got it higher.

"Hey, Gal," She says, "you hungry? None a them diets for me! Ol’ gals need their nourishment, preferably chocolate nourishment. You know there’s more of gravy than the grave about Me, don’t you? So let’s just stir the pot an’ see what we stir up in the world. Double bubbles, maybe, an’ toil an’ trouble an’ mischief an’ reality. Seriosity an’ humorocity—heck, let’s have four, five, or a dozen humors. So what’s cookin’, hmmm? Here, have a bite while we’re waitin’ to see what’s got stirred up this time.

"Gal," She says after awhile, "This here visit’s ‘bout over now. I got things to do an’ places to go yet. So lemme tell you one last thing: gravity’s the universal force that pulls everyone together. Remember that. An’ you take good care of yourself, you hear?"

And She is gone.

But She’ll be back.