A STRANGE CONSTRUCT PERHAPS.

I think of words, what they mean and how they’re used and this applies to visual terms as much as anything else.

I’ve recently been thinking of the words: “horizontal” and “horizon” as I’ve often heard people talk of something or other coming over the horizon. Nan used to talk of bi-focals – Her glasses which I think allowed her to read and see things without changing pairs. I know that things have breadth, depth and length. This has set me wondering (and this is the difficult bit to put into words) whether the horizon is like this:

Imagine the walls and ceiling of your room. The walls are vertical and the ceiling horizontal and the walls join the ceiling which sits on top of each wall. This has made me wonder whether you look up and see a vertical line comprising buildings and trees, then does your vision level out as you look into the far distance, making everything look as if it’s on the other side of a flat expanse of sky which you call the horizon? Things would still be vertical on the other side of the horizon though appearing smaller but with this flat expanse of sky in between just as the ceiling is flat between each wall.

Perhaps I’m thinking that the sum total of what you can see mimics a room only instead of walls and ceilings, once you’re outside or looking through a window, you have all that you can see, including trees and buildings, separated by an expanse of horizontal sky just as the walls of a room are separated by a horizontal ceiling.

I may be in error by thinking a ceiling is totally flat but when my uncle picked me up, on my Nan’s instruction, walked me across the room with my hands trailing the ceiling and round the top of the wall so I could work out how it was joined on, that was how it felt. Of course I realised people walked above me in bedrooms or wherever but I kind of thought of it when a child, like two separate floors and while I knew something must join them I didn’t really think about its construction.

I’d be interested to know how far wrong I am in my mental construct of your horizon. I bet I’m hopelessly wide of the mark. Now, alas I can put off my physio exercises no longer so let’s hope I don’t end up horizontal on the floor! That would never do!