Josser

Someone who was not born into a circus family, nor married into a circus family, but is in a circus nonetheless.

[josserstories]

Lonely

The thing they don’t tell you about the Circus Vagabond Life(tm) is that it’s lonely. Lonely is different from alone; I’m an awkward introvert hermit, and can find great enjoyment and freedom in being by myself. But there are times where even I long for company, for a friend, for someone to talk to. 

Loneliness comes in many flavors, and over the past decade I’ve become a connoisseur.

There’s the loneliness of being surrounded by people you don’t know or don’t relate to or don’t like, of being stuck in close proximity to them for days or weeks or months with no way to escape or find more friendly human contact.

There’s the loneliness of being surrounded by your friends, but knowing that your time together will always be brief, and that knowledge puts a shadow over everything, no matter how much to try to stay present and just enjoy the moment.

There’s the loneliness of a long drive, of being in your car by yourself for hours or days, long after the enjoyment of having the time to yourself has worn off, when you start to become all too aware of how alone and cut off you are.

There’s the loneliness that pounces on you when someone gives you a hug or bumps your shoulder with theirs, and you realize how very long it’s been since you’ve had any kind of physical human contact or affection and you ache for it.

There’s the loneliness of not speaking the language of the place you’re in, of having to communicate in gestures and broken phrases and mispronounced words until you start talking aloud to yourself just to be able to remember how to speak in complete sentences.

There’s the loneliness of finding a place where you fit, where you feel like you belong, but always knowing that you’re going to leave it, sooner or later.

Most of the time, this all just sits in the background and is easy to forget about and ignore. But it’s always there, just out of sight, and it’s exhausting. Sometimes it feels like treading water, like you’re always struggling to stay afloat.

You hold tight to the connections you have, sometimes even when they’re unhealthy and you really should let go of them. I’ve had more than one harmful relationship go on far longer than it should have because of the fear of going back to that loneliness. 

You find ways of coping; when I’m feeling really isolated, I talk to myself, or sing, or make up stories in my head elaborate enough that it feels like maybe I’m not actually alone after all. I reread my favorite books, the ones I know nearly by heart, and let the characters in them come alive and keep me company.

Some day I’m going to go home, really Home, and put down roots so deep you’ll never be able to move me. That thought comforts me when I’m feeling alone and adrift. But it scares me, too. What if I always feel like something is missing? What if I’ve spread myself too thin, fallen in love with too many people in too many distant places? 

What if I can never truly feel Home again?

-Chickadee

From last summer. Leaving a service station somewhere in Ontario at 4:30 am on one of my long drives. And don’t worry, I wasn’t moving when I took the picture; as per the point of this post, there was no one around, so stopping in the middle of the on ramp was no problem.

[josserstories]

Storm Warning

Weather is unpredictable. Where I’m from, we joke that you can experience all four seasons in the same day, sometimes. Where I am now, we had freezing rain nearly shut down the city just a few days ago, and now I’m running around in shorts and a t-shirt. Gotta love springtime.

When you essentially live outside, as you do on a tenting circus, the weather plays a huge part in your day to day life. When it’s wet, you’re wet. When it’s hot, you’re hot. And when things change quickly, you’d better be ready to adapt.

This particular day on the little show started out bright and sunny. Circus tents have a tendency to act like massive greenhouses in warm weather, so that morning we had opened the chimneys around the kingpoles in an attempt to vent some of the heat and avoid cooking our audience.

Everything was fine, until about halfway through the afternoon show. It starts with our front of house manager coming around to the back of the tent, pulling Bruce, our ringmaster, aside and whispering urgently. The rest of us are only halfway paying attention, focused as we are on the mechanics of the show.

Jim and I are both tent lacers, Jim taking one half of the tent when we’re in a hurry, or sometimes doing the whole job himself, like when I was too sick to run around on top of the canvas. Now, Bruce waves both of us over.

“There’s rain coming,” he says, nodding up at the gaping holes in the top of the tent. “Hopefully we’ll make it until the end of the show, but we made need to get those closed in a hurry. Be ready.”

Word spreads quickly, and soon we’re all peeking out of the tent in our spare moments. In front of the curtain, the show progresses as normal, but back stage, there is suddenly a palpable tension in the air. Closing the chimneys isn’t something that would normally be done in the middle of the show, but it’s better than soaking half the audience.

We’ve almost made it, just a few more acts until the finale, when there’s a rumble, barely audible over the noise of the show. Bruce steps outside, but is only gone a moment before he ducks back through the open sidewall and rushes over to where Jim and I are getting ready for the group vaulting act.

“We’ve gotta close the chimneys, right now!”

We spring into action. The canvas of a circus tent is rather filthy, and I’m in costume. I throw on my black pants and a ring jacket, the long, blue smock-like garments we wear when we have to been somewhere the audience will see us. Clogs aren’t normally the kind of footwear appropriate for scrambling around on the top of the tent, but they’re what I have, so they’ll have to do. Jim and I nod at each other and take off running in opposite directions. 

Out the back of the tent and around to the lacing seam. Jump, grab one strap in each hand, swing my legs up and hook my knees on the straps. I sit up, grabbing the spike at the top of the sidepole and using it to pull myself up onto the tent, careful not to slip and impale myself. 

It’s weird, being up there during a show and hearing the music and cheers of the audience directly below me. There are some surprised murmurs from down there, too; the little show’s tent isn’t made of the thick, double layer blackout canvas that a lot of bigger shows have, so our silhouettes are clearly visible as we bear crawl up the outside of the tent.

As I step up onto the top of the quarter pole, where the lacing seam levels out for a bit, I chance a look around. It’s still sunny where we are, but the sky to the west is a boiling mass of dark clouds. Even as I stand there, the wind whips up, tangling my hair and making me drop down to my knees as the tent below me sways. The storm is coming fast.

Down in the tent, I can hear Helena’s music playing, and I know I have about three minutes to get this done and get in place for the vaulting act.

I grab the chimney rope and thread it hastily through the grommets on the flaps of canvas. Pull it up into place, then dance around the pole three times, leaning into the rope for stability and to cinch it as tight as possible. I can’t see him, but I feel the tent shift as Jim does the same to the other king pole. I knot it off, take one more look at the sky, and get the hell out of there. 

The first drops are just starting to fall as I swing myself off of the tent and slide belly-down along the strap. I’m running as soon as my shoes hit the dirt, dashing back into the tent one step ahead of Jim and two steps ahead of the full deluge.

Bruce claps us both on the back, and Gina fusses with my hair, patting it back into place and handing me a cloth to wipe the tent-grime off my hands. Jim and I grin at each other, tossing our ring jackets aside. Less than 30 seconds later, we’re lined up with everyone else behind the curtain, ready to charge out into the ring.

The sound of the rain thundering on the tent nearly drowns out the music, but inside, we’re dry.

-Chickadee

An open chimney during a show. Also featuring Granny Andy in the vaulting act.

[josserstories]

Soup Can Memories

I got a package in the mail the other day, from Sarah. She was sending me some hardware that I accidentally left with her after our last gig, but there was also a little surprise in it as well: a can of Heinz tomato soup.

Now, this might not seem like much of a special thing, until you take into account that that particular brand of soup is very difficult to find in the US. Sometimes you can find it in the ‘international’ section of the grocery store, but that’s it. Here, if you want tomato soup, chances are it’s Campbell’s, which is all right, but it’s not quite as special.

Sarah and I practically lived off Heinz tomato soup on the little show. It was tasty, it was (at least moderately) nutritious, and most importantly, it was quick to prepare and could be eaten warm. Looking at that can sitting on my kitchen counter, I’m instantly transported back in time and across the ocean to our tiny little bunk room on a wet, chilly evening after build up.

I’d be sitting on the floor, tucked into the corner at the foot of Sarah’s bed, staying out of her way. She would be at the stove, standing over a pan of sizzling grilled cheese sandwiches and a pot of soup that was just starting to steam and fog up the windows. We traded off who did the cooking, since the room was too small for both of us to be doing anything useful at the same time. “The Ballet of the Bunkroom;” that’s what we called the dance we did to coexists in such a tiny space.

Our soggy work clothes would be in a pile by the closet in the corner opposite me; it’d be a pain in the ass to get them dry again, what with the bunkrooms being unheated and the weather being so damp all the time, but we’d worry about that later. Now, we were dry and finally starting to get warm as the act of cooking took some of the chill out of the air. In a few minutes, our bellies would be full, too, and we were basking in the relief of another successful buildup. Life was good.

-Chickadee

Hooks in the wall are great for freeing up space, and you can usually leave stuff hanging during a jump, if they’re secure enough.

[josserstories]

Swinging Trapeze Class Math Problems

How many more times can you do this trick before you start wearing through the skin on your legs?

How many more times can you do this trick before your hands give out?

What is the ratio between how tiring this drill is and how terrifying the next one is? At what point does exhaustion trump fear on a scale of acceptability?

You have to stop to catch your breath, but the longer you sit the lower the swing gets. At what point is any additional rest negated by the amount of effort needed to return the swing to full height?

You are thirsty and need a drink of water. How many sips can you have before you risk nausea? 

Subjectively, you’ve been up here for several days. How long is that in real time?

How often can you ask your coach to throw you the rosin sock before he catches on that you don’t really need more rosin and are just trying to take a quick break before the next drill?

In order to complete this movement, there are 15 different things your body has to do. Which 3 are the correct ones to concentrate on?

How much longer can you be brave?

-Chickadee

[josserstories]

Crash and Burn

I'm balanced on my back on the trapeze bar, my legs pointing straight up and pressed against the ropes for stabilization. I hate this part of the act. Elbow circles are still new enough to me to be a little scary, even though I've been doing them correctly for a while now. They still hurt in practice, but the magic of the show means that I won't feel anything right now.

I hook my arms around the trapeze, tucking the bar into the crooks of my elbows and folding my hands over my chest. The little armbands attached to my costume are directly against the bar, which made me nervous at first, but I've done this several times by now, and it's always been fine. The armbands even give my skin a little protection, and conveniently cover the almost inevitable bruises from the audience.

Take a breath, hear the music, and then I go, letting my legs drop away from the ropes, then whipping them up and back, flipping my whole body around the bar that is pressed between my back and my arms.

This trick hurts, but it's also so cool!

...at least until it goes very, very wrong.

I feel the fabric around my arms catch as I’m coming up out of the second rotation, and by then it’s too late, I have too much momentum and I can’t stop. I go around a third time, and my costume bites into my skin. I can’t move my arms to get my hands back on the ropes, so I fall forwards another half rotation until I’m dangling under the bar, my arms pinned behind me. I try to swing myself back up, but I can’t, and I'm too high for my feet to reach the ground. I try wrenching my arms free, but all that does is create a shock of pain strong enough to cut through the haze of adrenaline. In some part of my brain I know that that is a bad sign, for something to hurt even in the middle of a performance, but I can’t think about that now. I can see Sarah standing off to one side, her hands reaching out to me as she tries to figure out a way to help. I shake my head at her. There’s nothing she can do, short of literally cutting me out of my costume, and I hope it doesn’t come to that.

By now, all of my squirming has shifted my body lower. My shoulders are at an even more uncomfortable angle, but I’m able to contort myself enough to get my hands onto the ropes of the trapeze. Finally, I pull my body up and over the bar, relieving the pressure on my shoulders, but pulling the fabric around my arms even tighter, cutting into my biceps.

The audience cheers as I get back onto the bar, thinking that I’m free, but I’m not. I’m folded over the bar, hanging from my hips, but my arms are still tied to the trapeze by my costume. I struggle for a moment, then gather my strength and literally tear my way out of first one sleeve, and then the other, leaving them twisted around the bar. I half expect to see blood dripping down my arms, it’s hard to tell how bad it is through the fresh wave of adrenaline my body is pumping into my veins, but there’s nothing.

I turn over so I’m sitting, and the music filters back into my conciousness. Almost on autopilot, my brain orients itself as to where I am in the act, and miraculously, sitting on the bar is somehow exactly where I’m supposed to be at this particular moment in the choreography. I take a breath, and then I’m moving again, the fear and frustration and pain all pushed aside (deal with it later, there’s time for it later, you’ve got work to do now, keep moving keep going).

The whole ordeal took 40 second, but it felt like at least an hour. 40 seconds is a very long time to be dangling like a dying fish in front of an audience.

I make it through the rest of my act, and then through the finale, redeeming myself slightly with a well-executed double star drop on the silks. I make it through the curtain call, though I can see the strain in Sarah’s face, the way she keeps looking at me out of the corners of her eyes; I know she’s worried about me, but there’s not much I can do to reassure her right now. There are little sparks of pain running up and down my arms, and I know it’s only going to get worse.

As soon as the show is over, Sarah is there, her hands on my shoulders, asking if I’m alright. I nod, say I’m ok (she knows I’m not), that I just need to take a minute. She nods, she gets it, can see the mask starting to crack, knows I have to get where the audience can't see me before I shatter.

“Take your time,” she says, and lets me go.

I don’t even stop to change, I just throw my black warmup clothes on over my costume, stuff my feet into my shoes, and I’m out the door, walking as quickly as I can out along the shore of the lake that stretches behind the building we’ve been performing in.

My hands start to shake before I’ve gone more than a few yards. By the time I make it around a bend in the path, I have to stop, I have to sit down with my back against a tree because suddenly my legs don’t work so well.

I’ve had adrenaline crashes before, but nothing as strong as this. I feel like a puppet who’s strings have been cut. I’m shaking all over, tears running down my cheeks. It’s not from the fear or the pain, though my arms are really starting to hurt now, the stinging almost like electrical shocks; this is simply the physical reaction your body has to the chemical aftermath of fight-or-flight, and it sucks.

Eventually my breathing slows back to normal, the shaking settles to the occasional tremble, and I can stand up again. I wipe my face, using my phone to make sure the streaks of makeup are gone, putting back the professional mask I wear during shows. I can’t let the audience see my distress, and they’ll be milling around as we take down the rig and pack up.

My arms are a mess. My warmup shirt has long sleeves, thankfully, so I can hide the damage while we're around other people, but Sarah insists on checking me over the moment we're out of sight. Bruises are already darkening in a band around my biceps, and there is a dark line on each arm, either burns or abrasions, it's hard to tell. It takes me several days to realize that there are also patches on the inside of my arms that have suddenly gone numb; turns out those electric shock sensations were probably the result of nerve damage.

Now, just over a year later, most of the feeling has come back, though not all of it, and I've got a long thin mark on each arm where the burns were, reminders of what can happen when things go wrong.

Live and learn, as they say!

-Chickadee

A few hours after (before the rest of the bruises appeared and turned all kinds of pretty colors) vs. a year after. This one will be with me for a while, I think.

P.S. If you want a visual reference for what the heck I've been talking about in this post, Google "elbow circles on trapeze."

[josserstories]

Trapeze Cult

I’m sitting on one of the mats after my lesson, chatting happily with three of the other swinging trapeze students. We’re all clustered together, talking about twisting technique and comparing bruises and complaining about the standing knee drop, which really shouldn’t be as scary as it is. We’re all happy, almost giddy in the delight of having others who understand, who speak this strange language of ours.

At some point, the conversation shifts to the boots we all wear to protect our shins and ankles, and we start comparing overall design, number of eyelets, leather thickness, where to find the best laces. Rebecca has a brand new pair, and we all exclaim over how pretty and unmarked they are, in stark contrast to the rest of ours, which are all battle-scarred, suffused with sweat and blood and powdered rosin.

“They even smell nice!” she says, and we pass them around, pressing our noses to the clean, smooth leather.

There’s a chuckle from behind us, and we four look up to see one of the straps students standing there, shaking his head at us.

“It’s the swinging trapeze cult,” he says with a fond smile, “You guys are all crazy.”

I stick my tung out at him as he turns back to his warm up. Aerialists are considered to be rather insane by the wider circus world, but apparently even within our own community, we’re the crazy ones. 

I’ll take that name and wear it proudly, thank you very much!

-Chickadee

Post class. This is why I’m constantly buying more leggings; the trapeze eats them! Better the leggings than my skin, though...

[josserstories]

Seeds of doubt

The music ends with a crescendo, and we stand in front of the audience with our arms in the air, panting, beaming. We turn as one and run hand in hand, off the stage and through the filmy black curtain. As soon as it has swished closed behind us, I turn, grab Sarah, and twirl her in a circle. My laughter is slightly manic from the adrenaline high I’m still soaring on, but it's completely drowned out by the music of the next act.

When I finally set her down, she doesn’t let go, but keeps her arms wrapped around my waist and squeezes me with all of her (not inconsiderable) strength. It’s a little uncomfortable, breathless as we both are, but I’m holding her just as tight. We’re anchoring each other, and for a second it feels like if I let go, we’ll both float away.

Then the moment passes, and we step back. Sarah starts talking a mile a minute (“Dude, we got going so fast in Windmills! Did you hear them freak out when I dropped onto your feet in Monkeys? I fucked up that one bit, but I don’t think anyone could see…”) and I can only laugh, grinning like a fool. The act went well. Really well. I had been so nervous beforehand, more than I’ve been in a long time, and I don’t really know why.

No, that’s not true; I know exactly why I was so nervous, though even now part of me is hesitant to think about it. But it’s ok, the show was over a week ago, I can let my brain go there now. It’s safe to think those thoughts that I couldn’t let myself at the time.

We pulled out some of our old moves for this show, ones we hadn’t done in close to seven years. One of them is particularly tricky, where Sarah and I are locked together by a single leg each, me sitting on the bar and her hanging from me. (It’s hard to explain; there’s a picture of the first half of the move at the bottom of this post.) It’s the kind of thing that doesn’t look like it should be physically possible. And sometimes it’s not. Therein lies the root of my nervousness.

The first few times we tried it in practice, several days before the performance, Sarah had twisted out of the lock, toppling harmlessly onto the crashmat below us. That was fine; we had’t expected to be able to do it on the first try, not after so long. A few more tries and the muscle memory came back. I have to shift my right leg like this, position my knee just so, and then I have her. I can let go with my left leg, and she stays suspended from my right. We’re secure.

But.

But what if I don’t have her? What if it’s not secure enough and she rotates more than I can compensate for? In practice, it’s fine, we have a mat, so if I drop her, it’s no big deal. But in the show, the only thing below us will be a concrete floor. And if I drop her, she falls headfirst.

This is the thing about being the base that terrifies me. And it’s been a long time since I’ve had to face that fear, since most of what we’ve done over the past several years has been pretty low-stakes, risk wise.

And the thing is, I can’t show uncertainty, not to Sarah and not to myself. Once I decide that the trick is safe enough to put in the show (which is not a decision I take lightly), then I have to be completely confident that it’s going to work. Sarah has to trust me, unconditionally, and I have to trust myself.

So I take that little seed of doubt, of what-if’s, and I shove it way back into one of the dark corners of my brain. It tries to creep out periodically over the next few days, but each successful run-through keeps it more and more contained. Once that muscle memory comes back to me, I don’t drop Sarah again the rest of the week.

But that little seed is still there, even though I won’t let myself look at it, and it sprouts little vines of nervousness and worry that wrap themselves around me on show day. It makes my hands shake during my pre-show warm up, more than they usually do. It makes me pace and hop from foot to foot and obsessively tug at my costume. Even in the show, it’s there, pushing through the shell of adrenaline and laser focus, manifesting itself in the internal mantra that I can’t help running through my head as I shift my leg like this, position my knee just so:

Please oh please let this work please let me hold her please let her be safe…

And she is. I hold her. The lock is secure. 

And I knew it would be, in all but that one corner of my brain. But that little seed of doubt is why I hold her so tightly once we’ve made it backstage, feeling how small and fragile and strong she is. That is why today, the relief of a job well done is so much greater than it usually is. Because I knew that I could do it, that we would be fine.

But.

-Chickadee

I don’t have a picture of the single leg version, but this is a double leg-to-leg lock, pre letting go with the left leg. (Photo credit: Alex Kahler)

[josserstories]

Luckily, we’re acrobats!

At one of the places I train, there are two huge crash mats, which I affectionately refer to as the marshmallows. They’re close to two feet thick, and baffled, so you can fall hard onto them from a surprising height and be perfectly fine.

(Hilariously, the internal baffles also make them incredibly hard to walk on, resulting in many instances of me completing a complicated trapeze maneuver only to fall off the edge of the mat when I try to stand up.)

The only thing that I don’t love about the marshmallows is how hard they are to get from place to place. They have to be pushed or dragged, and half the time my feet treadmill on the slippery floor and I can’t budge them.

One day, as I was struggling with the mat after practice, a guy came over to help me. He grabbed one end of the mat while I took the other, helping me flip it up on end. Then we pushed it, with him walking backwards into the storage closet. This made the whole process much easier, but also resulted in my assistant being wedged into the back of the closet, completely surrounded on all sides by mats of various shapes and sizes. I couldn’t see more than the top of his head.

“Well, you’re stuck now!” I joked.

“Luckily, we’re acrobats!” he said with a cheeky grin, before clambering on top of the marshmallow, doing a forward roll across the top, and landing neatly on his feet in front of me.

It wasn’t really any spectacular thing; a few minutes before I’d seen him balancing his partner over his head with one hand, a much more impressive example of skill. But it was one of those moments that made me remember that the things that we take for granted, the kinds of things that are normal for us, for circus folk, can have their own kind of casual magic to them.

He’d also said “we.” There is a part of me that still gets giddy to feel included in a world like this, even after having been a part of it for over ten years now. That feeling of belonging, of being a part of something, is a deeply satisfying feeling. Even though I’m an aerialist, not an acrobat (because yes, they are two distinct things), he was including me, and that felt wonderful.

-Chickadee

[josserstories]

Things you learn when the power goes out at circus school: It is, in fact, possible to properly lace up black trapeze boots in near darkness. However, knee beats are really disorienting when you can’t really see. Not recommended.

(HI GUYS I’M NOT DEAD! It’s been a roller coaster couple months, but I’ve got a bunch of stories in my head/drafts folder that I want to get out into the world, so hopefully you’ll be getting a proper post from me soon! ^_^)

[josserstories]

Scars

Trigger warning: mild injury descriptions, and a brief mention of blood. Also, the picture at the end shows some scraped up legs. Nothing too graphic, though.

I met this guy when I was training in New York City. He was the perfect example of what I’ve come to consider one of the basic circus archetypes: the cocky young macho-man. He was enthusiastic, boastful, and almost endearingly un-self-aware. He was only a few years younger than me, but he was one of the first people to ever make me feel truly old.

Among other things, he had just started studying straps, and one day while we were walking to the subway station together, he told me he was really enjoying it.

“I can’t wait until I get some really awesome scars!” he said, looking at his disappointingly unmarred forearms.

I tried my best not to smile. He was so genuine, and I felt like a wizened old lady telling him not to worry, that if he stuck with, he’d get scars, like it or not.

My own forearms are marked by what I do. There are white patches running down the front of each one from years of hip circles that tend to peel the skin off, no matter what you do. The backs of my knees, the tops of my feet, even my face show the marks of my profession.

(The little crescent-shaped scar just under my lower lip isn’t one of the usual aerial-related marks one acquires; that one I got from being careless and bashing my face into the trapeze. I don’t really recommend doing that...)

It’s a running joke that you have to be at least a little masochistic to be an aerialist. I don’t know if it’s true, but you do most definitely have to be ok with pain, to one degree or another. When you start, everything hurts; even simply standing on a narrow trapeze bar can be incredibly unpleasant the first dozen or so times you do it. It gets better as the nerves in those areas die off (oh yeah intentional nerve damage ftw!), but once the basics become comfortable, there is an infinite supply of new and painful things to work on. It never really ends. We go to great lengths to protect ourselves, to find the least painful way of doing something, but the fact of the matter is that sometimes even when you do a move perfectly, it still hurts like hell.

You learn to breath through it, to smile at the audience in a way that belies the discomfort you’re in. One coach I had used to tell us that if they know that what you’re doing hurts, you’re doing it wrong. 

Adrenaline helps. In a performance, you rarely feel anything. Sometimes this can actually be a problem; there have been several occasions where Sarah and I have finished an act, noticed blood on our hands/legs/costumes, and then had to check each other over to see where it came from, because the excitement of the show meant we didn’t feel whatever injury we managed to inflict on ourselves.

Personally, I don’t consider myself a masochist. For me, the pain is the same as the fear: something that is there, and that I acknowledge as an inescapable part of what I do. It doesn’t hold me back, but, unlike my enthusiastic young straps friend, it’s definitely not something I seek out for its own sake, either. There’s plenty enough for me already, thank you very much.

So yes, patience, young grasshopper. Some day you’ll be a salty 28-year-old like me and have a story for each of your scars.

-Chickadee

This is what swinging trapeze does to your legs sometimes, not because of an accident, but simply from the repetition required in training. And this is through three pairs of leggings and a layer of hypafix.

[josserstories]

A Memory

I like walking the lot at night. The lights covering the tent are still on, the air still smells like burnt sugar and french fries, but it’s quiet, save for the gentle roar of the generator. The audience is gone, leaving behind constellations of empty popcorn bags and hot dog wrappers and broken light up toys. There’s a stillness here now that they never see. During the show, we create magic for them, but this is the time when I get to experience the magic for myself. The tent feels like a cathedral, tall and peaceful and full of so much potential. I step reverently inside, lay down in the middle of the ring and...well, not pray, exactly, but I think about the world and the people in it and then let my thoughts drift away and all I feel is content.

-Chickadee

[josserstories]

Ambidexterity, Dyslexia, and Trampolines

I’m left handed. This means that, since the world is mostly designed for righties, I am also somewhat ambidextrous. I can throw with either hand, use a computer mouse with either hand, little stuff like that. If I have to, I can eat with my right hand, as I discovered when I hurt my left elbow two winters ago and had to wear a sling for a while.

I am also dyslexic. It’s not sever, and I never actually got an official diagnosis, but left and right are pretty much interchangeable in my head, most of the time, and p’s, q’s, b’s, and d’s, give me hell when I’m writing. Sometimes it takes several tries to figure out which way an “S” is supposed to face. Frustrating, but not too terrible, really.

There aren’t too many scenarios that these things affect the circusy parts of my life. Sarah knows to give me visual cues when we’re working together, instead of just telling me to grab her left hand/foot/arm. When I teach, I tap my students limbs, instead of trying to figure out if it’s their left or right leg that needs to be straightened. I’ve learned that, in addition to saving me huge amounts of confusion, the kinesthetic reminder actually helps them learn, so yay! Everybody wins!

There was one time, though, that my lovely goofy brain wirings really bit me in the ass. In preparation for a round of swinging trapeze training, I started taking trampoline classes at an aerial school to learn how to twist in the air.

(Terminology note: twisting is not the same as flipping. Flipping is forward or backward rotation, like a backflip or a summersault. Twisting is like a pirouette. Swinging trapeze usually involves much more twisting than flipping.)

I haven’t done a lot of twisting, and I wanted a way to get the mechanics of it in my body before trying to learn it up on the bar. The first several classes were fantastic. The instructor was the most amazing spotter I’ve ever met in my life, which meant that even if I couldn’t really wrap my head around what he was asking me to do, I could just try it, and if (hah, I mean when) it went haywire, he’d be there to make sure I landed safely.

It was when I started learning a pike-position front flip with a half twist that things got...interesting. I’d nearly mastered it, could do the trick pretty consistently on my own without any intervention from my coach. And then, one day, I randomly started twisting the opposite direction. Without realizing it.

My coach was baffled. He’d seen ambidextrous twisters before, but he’d never seen someone just switch like that. The weirdest thing was that, while I could apparently do the trick in either direction (which was pretty cool), I had absolutely no awareness of which way I was going while I was doing it (which was not so cool...or safe).

After several more attempts, he had me go back to little basic things, like a straight jump with a full twist. This I could control much more easily, but my coach also noticed something interesting: I was twisting better in a clockwise direction, the opposite of what we’d been doing up until this weird switch. He told me that obviously I had the ability to go either direction, but for safety’s sake, I should choose one and stick with it while I was learning. And, since it seemed that my brain wanted me to go clockwise, he suggested that we go with that.

And I did. I’ve been twisting clockwise ever since, and so far (knock on wood), it’s gone well. I’m still very careful of what I think when I’m mentally walking through things, making sure that I’m picturing my body going the correct way around so it doesn’t get confused. I’m not sure if being dyslexic and/or slightly ambidextrous is the reason for the whole mid-air directional switcheroo, but it’s the best theory I’ve got.

The moral of the story? Brains are weird.

-Chickadee 

I don’t really have any trampoline-related pictures, so here’s a random swinging trapeze one from my time on the big show.

[josserstories]

Body Issues

I am a product of my genetics. I have the big hands, broad shoulders, and high cheekbones of my Dad’s Scandinavian family, and the short stature, wide smile, and dark eyebrows of my Mom’s Eastern European one. I’ve been told that I look exactly like whichever of my parents I happen to be standing next to at the time.

My paternal Grandmother says that our family is built to be strong. We’re none of us what you could call willowy; my aunts all share my annoyance with knee-high boots that won’t zip up over our calves, and my male cousins are all the approximate shape and size of refrigerators or linebackers.

Mostly of the time, I love my body. I am so grateful that it is more than fully-functioning, that it allows me to push the boundary of what is physically possible for human beings to do. My body is strong, and it is beautiful.

That is how I feel, most of the time. 

And then there are the days when I look in the mirror and all I can see are the bags under my eyes, or my cellulite-striped thighs that will never have a gap between them, or my battered, beat up hands. There are days when I stand with Sarah and feel like a huge lumbering cow next to her tiny, graceful self. It is a day-to-day experience, a skill to be practiced.

It used be much harder. I spent a long time feeling like I didn’t fit inside my skin, like something just wasn’t right. I’m too big to be a proper flyer, but too small to be a proper base. Too uncoordinated to be graceful with my feet on the ground.

Once, when I first started studying swinging trapeze, the woman who was coaching me made a comment about how I really needed to lay off the peanut butter, because I was getting too heavy to be pulled up to the bar on my lunge line. I freaked out, and basically stopped eating for about a week before Sarah snapped me out of it. 

(Sarah was so furious at my coach that at one point I thought she might slap her.)

Looking back, I realize that a lot of my body insecurities came from that coach. There were all kind of comments she would make, nothing too blatant, at least most of the time, but each one chipped away at my image of myself until all I wanted was for her to look at me and tell me that I was beautiful, that I was good enough. 

Years later, I realized that those were her own insecurities talking, that she was most likely trying to devalue me in order to feel better about herself, or something like that. I don’t think it was a conscious decision, but the damage was done regardless. It’s taken me a long time, and the act of completely distancing myself from her, to get over it.

I guess the biggest thing that I’ve learned, that I try to remember, is that you have to learn to love yourself now. I used to think, oh, if I just loose X% of my body fat, if I can manage to make my thighs slimmer, then I’ll be happy. Then I’ll like how I look. But it doesn’t work that way, and that kind of thinking can be a slippery slope. You have to get to the point where you’re happy, and then, if you decide that you still want to try to change something, go for it, but do it from a place of love, not loathing.

It’s been a journey, one I’m still on. Some days are better than others. You take it one day at a time, one step at a time. You figure out what works for you, what makes you feel strong, healthy, beautiful. Maybe that’s covering up all the mirrors in your house for a day or two, or maybe it’s standing directly in front of one in your favorite underwear and saying “Damn! I look good!” over and over again until your inner critic shuts up and you’re able to believe it, even for a little while.

(I have done both of these.)

No matter where you are on this road, we’re all walking it together. I’ll see you there!

-Chickadee

Me in my most ridiculous training unitard, in my ridiculously messy apartment. 

P.S. If any readers have awesome body positivity strategies they’d like to share, I’d love to hear them! ^_^

[josserstories]

An Anniversary

(Some excerpts from my journal, from when I was 17 and leaving home for the first time.)

May 5th, 2006, 7:44 p.m. US central time.

I planned on writing a lot, but the people at the desk just showed up, so we’ll see what I have time for.

Ok. So. I’m off. Really and truly. I think that maybe, just maybe, it’s starting to sink in that I’m actually leaving for the circus. I think taking those first few steps away from Mama and Papa were some of the hardest things that I’ve ever done in my life. I was crying most of the way through security. Then I saw Mama through about three panes of glass, in a little gap between all the people and security machines. She saw me too and smiled and jumped up and down and gave me the thumbs up. I think that’s really what got me through.

I found the gate easily. Really I think the hardest thing about this whole day has been the saying goodbye. Checking my baggage was a little hairy. It was pretty amusing to watch them try to figure out what the heck to do with my giant, seven foot long, bright pink stilt bag. But it went through fine.

Oh yeah, so I found the gate. I feel like I’ve been here forever, but really it hasn’t even been a half an hour yet. I’m listening to the Alegria soundtrack, and it’s giving me courage; reminding me of when I use to listen to it as a little kid and dream about being in the circus. Well, this is it. It’s really happening. Holy fucking crap.

Ok, so they’re boarding now. Gotta go!

May 6th, 2006, 10:14, England time

God I’m homesick right now. I’m sitting here in bed, in the bunk room that I’m sleeping in tonight (though it’s not the one I’ll be living in), staring at the picture on my computer. It’s one I took of the land around Papa’s house. And my computer says that it’s 4:15 in the afternoon. And I crying, wishing that I was in that picture, at 4:15 in the afternoon, hugging Papa. And Mama. And everyone. But I can’t. And I’m really homesick. I knew that there would be times like this, when I’m thinking “what the hell am I doing over here?! I’m suppose to be at home, with my parents! I WANT TO GO HOME!” I knew that I’d feel like this at least once. But that doesn’t make it any fucking easier. It sucks! 

And I had such a good day, too! I was going to write about it, about flying in and driving out to The Farm and all that, but I can’t tonight. I’m jet-lagged and miserable and homesick and I want a hug more than anything right now. And I need to conserve battery power till I can find a UK/US plug adapter, so I’ll go, cause I don’t think I’m going to get anything productive written tonight.

May 7th, 4:42 p.m.

I’m ok now.

I’m sitting in my bunk, listening to Gina talk to the Russian and Romanian mechanics that are working on the truck that’s next to the bunkwagon. My bunk rocks. It’s really small, but it rocks. The walls are light yellow and the floor is blue astroturf. I love it. I haven’t really moved in yet because I wanted to write a bit before.

So I’m going to start with yesterday. The flight was actually pretty nice. It was pretty empty, which meant I got three seats all to myself, so I could stretch out to sleep. I watched MirrorMask on my computer, and then went to sleep, probably around 11:00 pm or so. When I woke up again, it was light outside. Even though I’d only been asleep for maybe two hours at most. Weeeeeird. Yay for international time traveling!

I saw Ireland from the air. It was cool. It didn’t even really look all that interesting. I mean, it was pretty and everything, of course, but from 38,000 feet up everything pretty much looks the same. It was just cool to see the actual place that I’ve been daydreaming about since I was 8 years old.

England, on the other hand, was really pretty from the air. We had started coming down by then, so I got a much closer look, and I could see the cliffs that dropped off into the sea and the little beaches here and there. Seeing London was amusing. All the houses had red roofs. That was all I could see, all around, hundreds and hundreds of tiny little red roofs. Granted, we didn’t go over downtown, or any of the industrial areas, but still. I did see the London Eye, the worlds largest ferris wheel, for a second. That was cool. The thing is HUGE. I want to ride it at some point.

I landed, deplaned, found my baggage (that was easy; my stuff is rather conspicuous), got through customs, and out into the main airport all fine. The only problem was that there was no one there with a “circus” sign waiting for me, like I was told there’d be. Ok, well, don’t panic, they’re probably just late or something. So I waited. And waited. 

About an hour later I decided to call Gina’s cell phone. I used the change Uncle Leif had given me for a graduation present, which is the only UK money I had, and in the minute and a half that that lasted in the pay phone, I got that there had been some circus-related emergency a few hours away, and that they were running really late, but they were coming. So I got as comfy as I could and waited. For about another hour and a half. Fuuun. At one point, I swear I actually fell asleep on my feet.

Eventually, Gina showed up. She claimed to be really tired, but she seemed almost hyper to me. Or maybe manic is a better word. I now suspect that that’s her perpetual state. She bought a coffee for herself and a hot chocolate for me, and out we went to find Bruce, who was waiting with the van. 

Outside it was grey. And raining. And cold. Of course.

Will finish later, out of batteries!

11:07

Bruce is lending me one of his US/UK plug converter thingys, so I can now charge my poor hungry computer! Happiness!

So, where was I? Oh right. Ok. So driving for the first time in England is really weird. I was sitting behind what we think of as the driver’s seat, but here is the front passenger. I kept feeling like we were about to crash into the oncoming cars and that Bruce was going to have to swerve out of the way. Except then he didn’t. And I remembered that, oh yeah! The roads are backwards here! Or maybe we’re backwards at home. Whatever. It was strange. So I sat there, sipping my hot chocolate, and Bruce and Gina talked and talked and talked. It was so funny. Literally. I laughed for a half an hour straight. They told me all these stories about past shows and about each other and about the UK in general. I felt at home almost right away, like I’d known these people forever.

Everyone always says that England is so amazingly green and that people from the US are always so shocked by this. Well, it really didn’t look all that different from home, except for the better architecture and the giant fields of insanely bright yellow mustard flowers. If I hadn’t been so tired from flying seven hours and we hadn’t been driving on the left side of the road, I would have completely forgotten I was in England, since Bruce and Gina are American, too. But then we stopped at a gas station and everyone called it a petrol station and referred to potato chips as crisps, and I was brought back to reality. Oh yes. The US and England, two countries divided by a common language.

When we turned off the freeway, which isn’t called a freeway here, but I can remember what it actually is called, things got even more amusing. The roads are tiny. So tiny that all the little back country roads that I’m used to from home look huge. Some of the roads are more like bike paths. And they’re still two way streets. I kid you not. It’s insane. 

They are really pretty though. Instead of fences along the roadsides, there are these beautiful, huge living hedges that have been around since the middle ages. In other places the trees sort of arch over the road so you’re going through a little tunnel. And we passes all these beautiful farms that have been around as long as the hedges. It’s amazing how old this place is. There’s nothing like it in the US, unless you go to something like the Native American burial mounds.

So we’re going down one of these tiny little, hedge lined roads, and all of a sudden there’s a little sign on a gate that says “circus headquarters,” and here we are. The first thing I see? A circus tent? A wandering troupe of clowns capering across the driveway? Nope. A herd of sheep. They don’t call it The Farm for nothing. The sheep are really cute. There are all these fuzzy little white lambs running around everywhere at top speed and crashing into each other.

The rest of the day Bruce and Gina kept me really busy cleaning and painting and hauling so that I’d stay awake and get over my jet-lag. At one point Gina and I went into town to get some paint and other stuff. That was amusing, just being around everyone and hearing them talk and having to go “wait, what did you just say? was that English?!” I didn’t actually say that to anyone, but I was thinking it the whole time. It’s going to take a bit of adjustment to understand everything everyone says.

The only problem with the whole errand running thing was that we couldn’t find a international phone card for me to call home with. I got slightly freaked out, just because I knew that Mama and Papa were going to be worried if they didn’t hear from me soon. That was when I started feeling a little homesick. We tried Bruce’s cell phone when we got back to the Farm, but that didn’t work either. Long story short, Bruce ended up driving me back into town to try to use a pay phone. It took, I dunno, over a pound and a half, so almost $3, to get thirty seconds of international phone time. That was enough to call Mama’s cell phone, and leave a quick message saying that everything was fine, but that she needed to call us because we were having phone trouble. She called us back a few minutes later, and it was so good to talk to her, but it made me really homesick.

After that, I was getting really tired, so I helped Gina and Bruce with painting the bunks, and then went to bed, after having my little meltdown.

Whew. Ok. So I’m going to have to make today’s account a little quicker, because I gotta go to bed again. 

Gina said to sleep in today, because I wasn’t going to be able to for long, so I didn’t get up till about 10:00. Right away when I woke up I started helping Bruce with the bunks again, sweeping out all the paint chips that had been scraped off. That took me till almost noon, since the vacuum wasn’t working well and I had to do it by hand with a little broom. Trying to sweep tiny little paint chips off of astroturf is a pain.

After that, I did some odd jobs here and there, like getting some six-month-old paint off a big wrench. Apparently pain doesn’t dry in England. We’re really lucky it was sunny for part of today so the bunks dried, but it’s so wet here that when one of the paint cans spilled last year, the paint hadn’t dried when they found it, six months later. Given another six months, it might have, but now it was just half dried, uber-sticky, pale yellow latex goo. Ick. Gina described it as the consistency of elephant snot. Based on who she is, she might actually be speaking from experience. The stuff was so sticky that I needed to grind the whole wrench into the gravel to get it off. My hands were sticky the rest of the day, and there are still dirty splotches on them that haven’t come off yet, even though I’ve washed my hands about once every half an hour.

While I was wrestling with the paint-goo, Gina was talking with this guy Alec, who is one of the mechanics. Now, Alec is from somewhere in Eastern Europe. I don’t remember where exactly, but he has a very heavy accent. It’s a little hard for me to understand him. He’s not a whole lot taller than me, but he’s at least twice as wide, and all muscle. Gina told me that he actually won an Olympic gold metal for weight lifting. Apparently, he’s pulled the ticket office trailer across the lot before, by himself, with his bare hands.

Moving into my room was really nice. It actually feels like a place to live now, not just a tiny, smelly, yellow box. Airing it out got rid of the smelly part, and the yellow part is actually pretty nice. It’s the tiny that’s going to be interesting; it’s only 5 feet by 8. But really, I like it here.

Oh, right! I almost forgot! After the whole wrench thing, while I was still trying to get the goo off my hands, John (I think) invited us to his trailer to look at some old pictures. John is an old man with HUGE strong hands. He’s the sixth generation of his family to be in the circus, and has the coolest British accent I’ve heard so far. 

So me and Gina and Bruce went to the trailer that he and his wife live in. It’s more like a house than a trailer, really homey and cute. John’s son was there, and he looks almost exactly like his dad, white hair, limping walk, and everything. We stood there, looking at all these old old circus pictures of the three of them (John, his wife, and his son) and listening to them talk about circus history, for at least a half an hour. It was awesome. I could have stayed there all day. I love circus history, and listening to these guys was so much cooler than reading a book on it, because they were there! They are circus history. 

And now I’m a part of it, too, that’s the amazing thing. It’s almost like hearing old family history. They kept saying to me, “Now it’s important for you kids to know this, because it’s your history too.” Sooooooo cool. This is why I wanted to do this, aside from the actual training and performing. I wanted to be a part of this history, to feel that connectedness of the circus community. It feels like I fit now, like I’m not just some strange oddball hanging out with a few other strange oddballs. This is real, and I can be proud to be a part of it.

HOORAY FOR THE CIRCUS!

-Chickadee

Yes, I had blue hair when I was 17.

[josserstories]

Dear Shy Anons who send me lovely messages! And any other shy readers out there. I too am often too shy to send messages, or to come off anon, so I totally get it, and please feel free to stay shy! I still love you all! It just means that I might not always respond to your messages in a public way. But please please please know that I read them and love them and flail joyously over them! :3 Much thanks for all the kind words!

[josserstories]

I ADORE your blog! So so much! I look forward to every story you put out and I re-read them all time. You've lead such an amazing life and I am insanely jealous of you! I'm an amateur flying trapeze artist and I just hope that one day I can do some of the awesome things you do! I think what makes your blog so different is that you tell stories about everyday circus, which is something that has always fascinated me!! Please don't ever stop. <3 <3

Aaaaaaaah! Oh my god, SO MUCH HAPPY FLAILING!!!! XD Thankyouthankyouthankyou! You are seriously the best, dear anon! I may or may not have just sat here grinning like a dope for like twenty minutes after getting your lovely message. Feel free to chat circus with me anytime, if you want! And keep flying! I seriously would love to do more if it myself, but currently swinging trap is taking all of my moneys. -_- But aaah, it’s so amazing, isn’t it?!?!?!

Ok, I’m going to go happy-dance around my kitchen for a bit now. THANKS AGAIN FOR THE MESSAGE!!! EEEEEEE!!!!!! ^______________^

[josserstories]

Still point.

It’s raining.

It’s raining and there’s a cold breeze blowing in through my window, and suddenly I’m in England, almost ten years ago now, sitting on the floor of my bunkroom with a book in my lap, listening to the rain pounding on the metal roof of the wagon. The top half of my door is open, so the air is damp and smells like wet grass and diesel fumes. The wind is blowing towards the tent, towards the back of my wagon, so only a few stray drops fall in the door to wet my blue astroturf carpet.

I can hear Helena, our German juggler, in the next room over, rummaging through her cupboards. The wall dividing us is only a sheet of plywood, painted creamy yellow, so I can tell that she’s making lunch by the clang of a pot hitting the grate on the stove. She and I are the only vegetarians on the lot, and sometimes we share meals together.

Buildup finished just before the rain came, so I’m tolerably dry, at least for now. If it doesn’t stop soon, we’ll get soaked setting up the stringers, but that is something to worry about when and if it happens. Right now I’m warm and dry and pleasantly tired. The rain on the roof is a lullaby, and I’m tempted to crawl up into my bed for a nap. Helena would wake me up, I know, before the tentmaster came yelling. 

But I don’t want to sleep, not really. This is one of those special moments, those rare still points where there is nowhere I have to be, nothing I need to be doing, and I can just sit and listen to the rain.

-Chickadee

Dinnertime, on a less rainy day. My room is the one on the end, with Helena next door. I liked when we were parked up like this, with the smaller bunkwagon at a right angle to ours. It made a sort of courtyard in front of our rooms.