Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Trapeze

I am weightless, careless, giddy, feeling on top of the world, swinging free.

Yup, this is the sensation I’d go for, as I have always wondered about trapeze artists, how they smiled and waved at the crowds and then did the unbelievable.

A movie I watched in my teens was Trapeze with Burt Lancaster, Gina Lollobrigida, and Tony Curtis. It was about a love triangle among three trapeze artists. It became one of my favorite movies, and it inspired me as any other meaningful work of art.

Talking about inspiration, yesterday I ran into this quote on FB: "The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." -Albert Camus

This brought me to my dinosaur days when I used to worship existentialists. Even though I can’t seem to let go of those olden times, I hope I have matured some, since then. --As an aside, I’ll believe it, if you believe it. --Surely, absolute freedom is not possible, and it shouldn’t be. My conviction is, where another person’s freedom starts, mine stops. So I interpret Camus’ idea of freedom as being myself.

Since being myself is being on a trapeze, it is the kind of freedom I’d love to exercise without any fear in the circus of life. Wouldn’t it be something to swing free like a pendulum, hanging with ease, suspended by bent knees? Life is like a series of trapeze swings, too. We climb the ropes up the bumpy ladder, rung by rung, to the top. We hang on a bar or glide across an empty space between trapeze bars. If we are sitting on a bar or holding on to it, we are safe. But then, we see an empty trapeze bar beckoning us…

For me, this empty bar is my next step, my feeling alive. Each time this happens, I panic, but also, deep down, I know I must let go of the old bar and take my chances. It doesn’t matter if I don’t make it. I hope and pray the net closer to the ground will catch me. Whether it does or not, I have at least tried, and I can still climb up the rope ladder, once more. Like everything else, shouldn’t ambition have its perils, too?

By this time, if you really thought I could physically fly in the air between two bars, at my age, I can direct you to a few bridges for sale in this huge, wide circus of a world.

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Prompt: If you joined the circus, what act would you most want to perform?