SENIOR MOMENT: What’s over your head?

By BETTY MUNSEY/Columnist

Health problems prevent many seniors from looking up and truly enjoying the amazing array of interesting items and experiences above our heads. Skeletal problems often draw the neck and shoulders downward preventing fluid neck movement required when looking up. Those of you dependent upon bifocals are cautioned to look down periodically to avoid objects that might cause falls.
Michelangelo labored with intense dedication for over four years (1508 to 1512) while painting the ceiling of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel.  The Italian Renaissance painter’s work is still on display today for visitors to enjoy at this holy site. Michelangelo recognized the potential of the chapel’s barren ceiling as a thing of beauty. Modern-day professional photographer Simon Poon focuses his artistic photography projects on the beauty of skies over cityscapes such as Hong Kong.
As children, many of us enjoyed lying on blankets or freshly cut grass watching fluffy white cloud formations float across the sky while trying to decipher various shapes. There’s actually a term for cloud watching—nephelococcygia—and it can’t be beat for inexpensive fun.  Airlines are now charging more for window seats that allow passengers to view life in reverse by looking down upon the clouds and the Earth below.
Electric companies encourage customers to look up to avoid encountering power lines. Ministers encourage us to look up to God through such scriptures as Psalm 121: “I will lift up my eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help.” Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Marie Knight recorded “Over My Head There’s Music in the Air” in the 1940s probably never expecting the song to remain popular today more than 60 years later.
It wasn’t so long ago that porch ceilings were painted a calming baby blue to resemble the summer sky and also as a symbol of good luck. Some folks thought that the blue color would fool spiders and bees into thinking the ceiling was truly the sky so that they would travel to other places to build their nests. In today’s business environment with large mega stores, the chances are great that the store’s ceiling is painted black to better disguise structural elements as well as heat and air vents and security cameras.
Building improvement specialists stress the use of crown moldings, ceiling decorations, and sky lights to draw the eyes upward and increase the size of the room through optical allusions. The November/December 2009 issue of Lowe’s Creative Ideas magazine displays a very ornate and colorful wreath chandelier suspended with five hooks from a porch ceiling. 
If we always looked forward and not upward, just imagine how many amazing things we would miss. Whenever possible all of us, regardless of our age, need to look up and savor our immense horizons.
A retired Extension agent, Betty Munsey lives and farms in Bland County.