How to Earth same world · other eyes
How to Earth

Through the eyes of Gravity.

54 everyday things, re-seen by gravity.

Gravity Out in the world

a baby shower

I am holding forty-one people in this decorated room, and I am holding the balloons too, though the balloons keep testing me, straining upward on their…

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Gravity Out in the world

a Black Friday sale

They line up outside the doors in the dark, and I hold every one of them: the man leaning his shoulder into the cold glass, the woman shifting her…

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Gravity Out in the world

a christmas dinner

I am holding forty-one pounds of turkey, though it is a different weight now than it was this morning, lighter by the parts they have carved and moved…

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Gravity Kitchen

a coffee mug

I am holding the mug to the desk, and the coffee to the mug, and the desk to the floor, and the floor to the middle of the world.

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Gravity Out in the world

a doomsday prepper bunker

I am holding everything in this room, the same as everywhere else.

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Gravity Home

a doorbell

The button waits by the door, and behind it, so do I.

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Gravity Out in the world

a first date

Two of them at the small round table, and I am holding all of it: the table, the two chairs, the two coffees going cold, the four hands that keep…

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Gravity Out in the world

a funeral

They came here to give me something, and they set it down so gently.

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Gravity Out in the world

a furry convention

Ten thousand people, and every one of them is mine.

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Gravity Out in the world

a goodbye at the airport gate

I am holding two people who do not want to be separated, though I am not the thing separating them.

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Gravity Out in the world

a grandmother's kitchen

I am holding the kitchen.

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Gravity Out in the world

a group project meeting

Four of them at the table, and I am holding all four to their chairs, which is more work than it sounds.

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Gravity Out in the world

a gym in January

I am busier here than anywhere else in the city this month.

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Gravity Out in the world

a gym mirror selfie

I am holding all of it.

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Gravity Out in the world

a haunted house

They tell each other it is not safe here, and yet I hold it as I hold everything: the sagging beams, the warped stairs, the chandelier that has hung…

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Gravity Out in the world

a hospital waiting room

I am holding forty-one people in these chairs, and not one of them is sitting the way they usually sit.

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Gravity Out in the world

a house party at 3am

By now most of them have found the floor, or something near it, and I am holding them all.

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Gravity Home

a houseplant

I am holding a plant on a windowsill, and I hold the windowsill, and the window, and the wall the window is set into, all the way down through the…

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Gravity Out in the world

a job interview

She has been sitting in the plastic chair for nine minutes, and I have her the entire time.

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Gravity Home

a laundry basket

She has been carrying it for six years, twice a week, and I have never once dropped it for her.

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Gravity Kitchen

a microwave

I am holding the coffee inside its cup and the cup against the counter and the counter down through the floor, and now the human sets a bowl behind a…

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Gravity Out in the world

a middle school dance

I am holding four hundred children against the floor of a room strung with paper, and not one of them will let me bring them together.

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Gravity Home

a mirror

Right now I am holding the human upright in front of the polished glass, and I am holding the glass to the wall, and I am holding the wall to the…

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Gravity Out in the world

a music festival

Two hundred thousand of them, and I have every one.

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Gravity Out in the world

a nightclub bathroom queue

I am holding forty-one of them in a line against a wall, and every one is leaning.

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Gravity On you

a pair of shoes

I hold them at two small places now, the flat of each foot pressed against the ground, and through the shoes I hold the person above them.

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Gravity Out in the world

a park bench

I am holding four things on this bench and one of them is heavier than it should be.

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Gravity Out in the world

a parking lot

I am holding four hundred cars against the turning stone, and each one is holding the stone back with exactly the same patience, which is the only…

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Gravity Kitchen

a refrigerator

I am holding the whole thing down, of course.

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Gravity Out in the world

a revolving door

They come to me in a moment of confusion, hands out, deciding which of the four glass wings to trust.

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Gravity Out in the world

a séance

They have gathered around the small round table and put their hands flat upon it, ten fingers each, and I am holding all of them.

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Gravity Out in the world

a self-checkout machine

I am holding six people in a row, each one leaning slightly toward the little screen, and I am holding the screen too, and the scanner, and the coins…

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Gravity On you

a set of keys

I am holding fourteen grams of brass and steel, and I am holding the hand that turns them.

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Gravity On you

a shopping receipt

She held it for a long time, and it weighs almost nothing, so I held it easily, along with her hand, along with her whole arm slack at her side.

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Gravity Home

a shower

Every morning she steps in and gives me her whole weight at once, both feet, no warning, trusting the floor and the floor trusting me.

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Gravity Out in the world

a silent disco

I am holding two hundred bodies in a field, and every one of them is dancing to something I cannot feel.

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Gravity Out in the world

a spin class

Forty humans on wheels that lead nowhere, and I am holding every one of them to the saddle.

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Gravity Out in the world

a TikTok live stream

Right now I am holding a person who is holding a small bright rectangle at arm's length, and their arm is getting tired, and I am the reason.

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Gravity Kitchen

a vending machine

I am holding it and everything in it.

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Gravity Out in the world

a voicemail from someone gone

She has not touched the little glowing rectangle in a long time, but I hold it anyway, the same four ounces I have always held, resting in her open palm.

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Gravity Out in the world

a wedding

I am holding four hundred and eleven people in one room, which is more than I usually gather in a single place, and every one of them is holding…

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Gravity Out in the world

a work call on mute

The human is holding still in a chair that I am holding, in a building I am holding, in a city I have never once put down.

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Gravity Out in the world

a yoga retreat

They came up the mountain to escape weight, and I carried each one of them the whole way.

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Gravity Out in the world

an airport at 5am

At this hour I am holding almost no one, and the ones I have are barely holding themselves.

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Gravity Home

an alarm clock

At 6:00 the small box on the bedside table begins to shriek, and the body it woke goes rigid, then reaches, then falls back into the mattress, and I…

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Gravity Out in the world

an elevator

I have this small room by four wires, and inside the room I have six people, and inside the people I have their blood, which wants to come down to me…

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Gravity On you

an umbrella

They open it against me.

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Gravity Out in the world

doomscrolling at 2am

The body is on the bed, and the bed is on the floor, and the floor is on the world, and the world is on me.

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Gravity Out in the world

getting left on read

I am holding this human against the couch, and I am holding the small bright rectangle in its hand, and I am holding the blood settled low in its…

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Gravity Out in the world

holding a newborn

I have wanted this one his whole first hour.

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Gravity Out in the world

moving out of a childhood bedroom

I have been holding this one against the same patch of floor for eighteen years.

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Gravity Out in the world

sitting with a pet at the vet

Right now I am holding four hundred grams of small animal, and it is trembling, which does not change the holding.

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Gravity Out in the world

the first night in an empty apartment

I am holding a person who has decided to sit on the floor.

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Gravity Out in the world

the last day at a job you loved

I am holding forty-one people in the same open room I always hold them in, and today the room is louder than the work in it.

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