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charged, so when you ground, you’re connecting your body to a negatively charged supply of energy. And since the Earth has a greater negative charge than your body, you end up absorbing electrons from it. The grounding effect has an anti-inflammatory effect on your body. I don’t know about all that but I need to clear my head and as I’m trying to cut down on the headache tablets, I may as well try barefoot.
    I look outside. There is no grass in my garden. That was the terrible, unspeakable thing I did when I moved in four years ago. I wasn’t a fan of gardens, I was twenty-nine years old, I was busy, I was barely at home, I was never home long enough to notice my garden. To avoid the effort involved in its upkeep, I had the relatively nice garden that was there when I bought the place dug up and replaced it with maintainable cobble-locking. It looked impressive, it cost a fortune, it horrified the neighbours. I put some nice black pots outside my front door with plants that stayed green all year round, pruned into clever modern twisted shapes. I cared a little bit about how it affected my new neighbours, but I was never home to discuss it with them at length, and I reasoned with myself that it would save me paying a gardener – because I wasn’t about to do it myself; I wouldn’t know where to start. There is still grass on the pathway outside of my house, which is maintained by my neighbour, Mr Malone, who did this without asking me. I think he sees it as his because he was here first, and anyway, what do I know about grass? I am a grass-defector.
    I’d thought that buying my own house at the age of twenty-nine – a semi-detached, four-bedroom family home – was quite a mature and grounding thing to do. Who knew that when I dug up the garden I was losing the very thing that could have kept me grounded.
    I check your house and your jeep isn’t there and all the lights are out. I never need to worry about anybody else’s house. I never seem to care. I put on a tracksuit and go downstairs barefoot. Feeling like a sleuth, I run on tiptoe across the cold paving down my driveway and straight to the grass that lines the path. I check the grass for dog poo. I check for slugs and snails. Then I pull up the ends of my tracksuit bottoms and I allow my feet to squelch into the wet grass. It is cold but it’s soft. I chuckle to myself as I walk up and down, surveying the street at midnight.
    For the first time since I’ve moved in, I feel guilty for what I’ve done to my garden. I look at the houses and see how mine is dark and grey amidst the colour. Not that there is much colour in the gardens in January, but at least the bushes, the trees, the grass, break the grey concrete of the paths, the brown and grey of my paving.
    I’m not sure if going barefoot in the grass is helping anything other than the onslaught of pneumonia, but at least the cool air has soothed my hot, over-wired head and freed up some space. This is unusual behaviour for me. Not the walking on grass at midnight, but the lack of control. Sure, I’ve had stressful days at the office where I’ve needed to regroup, but this is different. I feel different. I’m thinking too much, focusing on areas that didn’t require thinking about before.
    Often, when I’m searching for something, the only way I can find anything is to acknowledge out loud what it is, because I can’t see it unless I fully register and envision in my mind what it is I’m looking for. For example, rooting around in my oversized handbags for my keys, I say either in my head or aloud, ‘Keys, keys, keys.’ I do the same in my house: I wander from room to room, saying or muttering, ‘Red lipstick, pen, phone bill …’ or whatever it is I’m looking for. As soon as I do that, I find the thing quicker. I don’t know the reason for this, but I know that it makes sense, that it’s true, that Deepak Chopra would be able to explain in a more sophisticated, informed, philosophical