The Ethological City

First, the feet settle, a slight flexing of the ankles, toes exploring the surface of the ground for the purchase of a secure foundation. Breathe, look down, move. Balancing, tilting, the ground approaches, hands outstretched. Fingers probe the pavement, the feel of diverse sensations: the coarseness of the cement, fine differences in textures, the pressure of the body's impending weight in the pads of the fingertips. Head down. Weight shifting to the hands, space inverting with the transition in orientation. Pause, breathe, look down once more, think of the movement to come. Kick (right foot). This is the point of the handstand; balance to motion to rest. Hands still, wrists strong, hips affecting gravity's force in their alignment above the head, knees and ankles touching, stillness comes fleetingly. The body rests for a moment with the concrete; the spine like the wall it may yet need to touch against. Bodies moving and resting together, each involved. There is no handstand without the cement, the wall, gravity's pull and sway, without the city, without the body. Hands and pavement, weight and movement, motion and rest. An ethology of bodies, cities, affects, relations, encounters and events. A handstand.