REALITY?: Wasted Space

This is another one of my odd discoveries that I seem to be making in this latter part of life, so pass it by if you’ve not the head for it today.

Lying in bed last night, in position on my stomach slightly turned, one arm under the pillows to clutch the top end of the mattress, one set of toes curled over the bottom edge.  Six foot stretch I’m guessing.  Now this is my space, about an eighteen-inch diameter circle, and when I’m standing it is my space here and there, wherever I move around within the giant space of all.

But I’m only five feet tall.  From DaVinci’s (I think–don’t make me look it up now, when I’m off on a flyer like this) estimations, man’s span is approximately his height.  So that gives me a five foot cube of space (my fingertip to fingertip span is almost exactly 60 inches), or 125 cubic feet of space all to myself.  Sometimes we have to share our space, such as when we stand in line to see the DaVinci Code movie or at the deli counter at Eastertime.  But generally, we move in these blocks of space. 

But lying there in the dark, realizing that el esposo is six feet tall (giving him 216 cubic feet of space), I wondered not about my side to side space, but losing the extra space at the top, above my head.  That’s 25 cubic feet of space I just can’t use.  Unless I’m painting on a stepladder, or sometimes I jump up into that space like at the deli counter at Eastertime when they can’t see me because they heap the loaves of bread and strange bottled mustards there. 

Hmmm.  Frugal person that I am, and aside from going back to platform shoes which gave me use of some of that wasted space for a couple years at least, I started reasoning out how I could take advantage of the space above my head and truly lead a fulfilling life of fulfilling my allotment of space. 

Then I fell asleep.