Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Forgotten arm.
July 30, Minerva.
Last year Dylan broke his arm on this lot, not far from the trailer, on the steps of the bridge leading to the park, where we had had such fun all day. I told him about it this morning when he woke up, and after going over to look at the bridge he remembered.
It all seems so long ago, long forgotten.
It was just last year.
Last year Dylan broke his arm on this lot, not far from the trailer, on the steps of the bridge leading to the park, where we had had such fun all day. I told him about it this morning when he woke up, and after going over to look at the bridge he remembered.
It all seems so long ago, long forgotten.
It was just last year.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Three shows.
July 27, Richfield.
Two shows and counting. Two bursting crowds and hoping.
It's that town again.
Two shows and counting. Two bursting crowds and hoping.
It's that town again.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Time to go?
July 24, Middlefield.
Two days in a row now that I misunderstand Alex' or Tavo's directions in the morning and head somewhere I shouldn't have, so I decided if it happens again it's time to quit and go back to Columbia, where I can just ride my bike around and be less of an embarrassment.
What's wrong with me that I can't even see straight?
(Wish it were only a matter of eye glasses.)
Two days in a row now that I misunderstand Alex' or Tavo's directions in the morning and head somewhere I shouldn't have, so I decided if it happens again it's time to quit and go back to Columbia, where I can just ride my bike around and be less of an embarrassment.
What's wrong with me that I can't even see straight?
(Wish it were only a matter of eye glasses.)
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
The rains wins (the kids too.)
Battle between rain and sunshine yesterday, after Monday's clear water win.
The rain always wins in the circus because in the end we have to call a tractor to get us out anyway, and in the end we have to make plans not to get bogged down, or wreak havoc in the lots, or spend the days wading through water-logged grass.
For the kids of course it's all singing in the rain.
Monday, July 22, 2013
Bogged down.
July 22, Willowick.
In three days we went from public housing in Windham to Victorian mansions in Aurora and on to the one-story fifties bungalows of Willowick, or a quick and imperfect summary of the American class system, although I am willing to bet that most of these folks in Willowick have been fast losing their grip on the ladder in the past five years and are getting bogged down.
There was widespread flooding here last week it looks like; we arrived to streets dotted with wet carpets, furniture and other belongings piled on the curb in front of almost every house down every street we drove along (and my favorite library of the year, too, flooded.)
More rain today, too, at times heavy, bogged down leaving the Aurora lot this morning and no doubt bogged down tomorrow morning again.
In three days we went from public housing in Windham to Victorian mansions in Aurora and on to the one-story fifties bungalows of Willowick, or a quick and imperfect summary of the American class system, although I am willing to bet that most of these folks in Willowick have been fast losing their grip on the ladder in the past five years and are getting bogged down.
There was widespread flooding here last week it looks like; we arrived to streets dotted with wet carpets, furniture and other belongings piled on the curb in front of almost every house down every street we drove along (and my favorite library of the year, too, flooded.)
More rain today, too, at times heavy, bogged down leaving the Aurora lot this morning and no doubt bogged down tomorrow morning again.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Waiting (Looking back series.)
It was hot that day too, up in the Adirondacks back when we played New York state, even though we were up in the mountains, parked in a ski resort, a beautiful view and the smell of wild thyme growing underneath your feet, it was hot and the generator was not on yet and at the Fuscos I stepped in for a question or other, I don't remember what it was but I remember the moment, there they all were, nothing else to do but to wait out the heat.
It started raining again today and it's cooler after a hot morning.
July 9, North Creek, New York, posted July 22, 2010.
Thank you.
July 21, Aurora.
This is when you want it to go on forever.
Thank you, once again, to Krista Tippett for her show On Being today.
Thank you for taking us to Detroit this morning on an adventure in rare truth and guts, thank you for a fascinating, exhilarating interview of Grace Lee Boggs and others in her move. Thank you for thrilling and inspirational show (another one!) and if it weren't for my kids I would pack my bags and move to the Motor City to be part of this moment in history, this moment of crisis a rebirth, an opportunity for things better, a moment in conscience, in truth, or as Mrs. Boggs said, What a time to be alive!
And what a joy to hear such people, their intelligence and grace, their independence and pride contagious, people with hearts and eyes wide open, revolutionaries, their wisdom, their strength, the hope they spread like fire.
This is when you want it to go on forever.
Thank you, once again, to Krista Tippett for her show On Being today.
Thank you for taking us to Detroit this morning on an adventure in rare truth and guts, thank you for a fascinating, exhilarating interview of Grace Lee Boggs and others in her move. Thank you for thrilling and inspirational show (another one!) and if it weren't for my kids I would pack my bags and move to the Motor City to be part of this moment in history, this moment of crisis a rebirth, an opportunity for things better, a moment in conscience, in truth, or as Mrs. Boggs said, What a time to be alive!
And what a joy to hear such people, their intelligence and grace, their independence and pride contagious, people with hearts and eyes wide open, revolutionaries, their wisdom, their strength, the hope they spread like fire.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Like a farm.
July 20, Windham.
A soaked arrival, parked all crooked behind Radar, it rained all night, or so it seemed, and hard this morning, and even though the reprieve from the heat feels good, here in the circus rain, even in the best of cases, makes life difficult.
A mud show is a moveable farm; we are forever studying the skies (or rather our smart phones,) all dependent on the weather, for it hits us head on.
With the rain come stuck tractor trailers and recreational trailers, acres of mud, flooded midways and backstage, cramped humid quarters full of wet clothes that never dry. Heat brings dust and dangerous work conditions, and cold, well, cold weather is what we try our hardest to avoid simply because it is the most challenging environment we can work in. Muscles don't work well in the cold, trailers offer no adequate protection to the cold, but mostly people usually don't show up in droves to sit in an unheated tent.
I found myself forgetting about how directly the weather affects the circus when I was in Columbia earlier this year, cozy in my house with round-the-clock power and paved driveway (well, not exactly but close enough.)
A soaked arrival, parked all crooked behind Radar, it rained all night, or so it seemed, and hard this morning, and even though the reprieve from the heat feels good, here in the circus rain, even in the best of cases, makes life difficult.
A mud show is a moveable farm; we are forever studying the skies (or rather our smart phones,) all dependent on the weather, for it hits us head on.
With the rain come stuck tractor trailers and recreational trailers, acres of mud, flooded midways and backstage, cramped humid quarters full of wet clothes that never dry. Heat brings dust and dangerous work conditions, and cold, well, cold weather is what we try our hardest to avoid simply because it is the most challenging environment we can work in. Muscles don't work well in the cold, trailers offer no adequate protection to the cold, but mostly people usually don't show up in droves to sit in an unheated tent.
I found myself forgetting about how directly the weather affects the circus when I was in Columbia earlier this year, cozy in my house with round-the-clock power and paved driveway (well, not exactly but close enough.)
Friday, July 19, 2013
Lapse.
It was a perfect big top view out the window so I had fun doing a time lapse, starting from before the tent went up and as people from town were crowding in to watch, until the second finale and as it went down. And then I didn't take the last picture, when the tent was on the ground and the crew rushed in to fold it, because I was worried I was failing my kids by waiting so long taking pictures when I should have been attending to their nightly routine.
That view will never repeat itself, and I am missing the end of the film, as Fridman said.
The lake.
Lake Erie at our feet, the circus is in Conneaut again, one of those unassuming little Ohio lakeshore trail towns, a place we haven't played since 2009 and that I remember fondly not only for the immense beach, Dylan running on the boardwalk toward the water, I behind pushing the double stroller with baby Nicolas in it, but also for the joy I had in taking pictures of circus people on the beach, everybody was there it seemed, after the shows so it must have been a week end, and here we are again three years later and this time no wild Photoshop sunset but the coolness of the water and the kids having fun and the teens getting their shoulders burned, such a good time again.
Three years ago it was also very hot, and I remember Cathy Poema's face covered with shiny tiny beads of sweat like jewels, the picture I took of her then, and again today the intense heat but it is downplayed by a steady breeze off the lake, and we got lucky, too, for our trailer sits under two giant trees whose canopy is keeping us in the shade.
I couldn't stop taking pictures today again, too. It must be something about the beauty of this park, or the view of the lake from the trailer, or the playground right by the backstage entrance, or the way the circus is parked in a circle around the tent, the chance that makes a certain place what it is, the arrangement of houses on a street, the layout of a town, a scenery around a bend in the road, and our moving village no less beautiful sometimes for its transience.
Hot.
July 17, Albion.
It's hot. Circus life goes on.
The boys do practice and I do laundry, going back and forth between the loads and landing a hand spotting Dylan (when we first joined back, in May, and started practice again, John commented that I must be the only spotter who's also on the PTA.)
The laundromat is around the corner, oh joy. It's not air-conditioned, they never are, but somehow it's cooler in there than in our car, whose right-hand window cannot go down, and whose air-conditioned system is showing its years, the car in effect a black metal trap for heat. There's Raul and Luis, Sue and Mike, Rebecca and Marshall, but they go away one by one and I'm left alone with my two loads and the oppressive heat, and not a whisper of air.
It's hot. Circus life goes on.
The boys do practice and I do laundry, going back and forth between the loads and landing a hand spotting Dylan (when we first joined back, in May, and started practice again, John commented that I must be the only spotter who's also on the PTA.)
The laundromat is around the corner, oh joy. It's not air-conditioned, they never are, but somehow it's cooler in there than in our car, whose right-hand window cannot go down, and whose air-conditioned system is showing its years, the car in effect a black metal trap for heat. There's Raul and Luis, Sue and Mike, Rebecca and Marshall, but they go away one by one and I'm left alone with my two loads and the oppressive heat, and not a whisper of air.
The book cellar.
July 16, Warren.
I stop by libraries whenever I spot one and I have the time.
In town for errands today I went into the Warren Public Library and stepped down into what they called "the Book Cellar" and into a book lover's heaven. New editions for a dollar, books you don't' usually find at these types of sales, where you encounter the same books over and over again, The Kite Runner, Three Cups of Tea, Oprah Book Club's selections, as if people got sick of them everywhere at the same rate.
I stop by libraries whenever I spot one and I have the time.
In town for errands today I went into the Warren Public Library and stepped down into what they called "the Book Cellar" and into a book lover's heaven. New editions for a dollar, books you don't' usually find at these types of sales, where you encounter the same books over and over again, The Kite Runner, Three Cups of Tea, Oprah Book Club's selections, as if people got sick of them everywhere at the same rate.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Travels.
July 15, Warren.
Travel day and a long drive today, a big detour onto I-90 crossing New York state from east to west and back west into Pennsylvania, a five-thirty in the morning call and six-thirty in the afternoon arrival, a couple of blown-up tires and some other minor stuff on the way and simply a long long way.
It's hot again, another heat wave under way.
Travel day and a long drive today, a big detour onto I-90 crossing New York state from east to west and back west into Pennsylvania, a five-thirty in the morning call and six-thirty in the afternoon arrival, a couple of blown-up tires and some other minor stuff on the way and simply a long long way.
It's hot again, another heat wave under way.
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Reality is much more beautiful.
July 13, Dalton.
There was a luncheon with the American Legion sponsors today, as there is every year here, and Carolyn was asked to make a speech.
She recalled her years working in the circus, and capped the speech reminiscing about high school. "My guidance counselor asked me what I wanted to do after school and I told her I wanted to be in the circus. She said, Now, Carolyn, there is a difference between reality and fantasy, and she was right: reality is so much more beautiful than I could have imagined."
Forget fantasy: long days and endless work, an uncertain future and lots of mud on the sole of your shoes, the circus is all that but that's not why you fall in love with it.
It's the beautiful reality of it.
It's much more beautiful. And as with the people you love, the beauty is in your eyes. For me it's the beauty of the ebb and flow, the light on the tent, the sweat on a performer's brow, the places seen from my window, the roundness of the ring.
It's much more beautiful for being lived.
There was a luncheon with the American Legion sponsors today, as there is every year here, and Carolyn was asked to make a speech.
She recalled her years working in the circus, and capped the speech reminiscing about high school. "My guidance counselor asked me what I wanted to do after school and I told her I wanted to be in the circus. She said, Now, Carolyn, there is a difference between reality and fantasy, and she was right: reality is so much more beautiful than I could have imagined."
Forget fantasy: long days and endless work, an uncertain future and lots of mud on the sole of your shoes, the circus is all that but that's not why you fall in love with it.
It's the beautiful reality of it.
It's much more beautiful. And as with the people you love, the beauty is in your eyes. For me it's the beauty of the ebb and flow, the light on the tent, the sweat on a performer's brow, the places seen from my window, the roundness of the ring.
It's much more beautiful for being lived.
Friday, July 12, 2013
A handful of history.
July 10, Hudson.
A rare day off and we're off to downtown Boston, Fridman to see the trove of historical places, I to reminisce on a visit to the same places a quarter of a century ago, or so it seems, as a student making my way around the country checking out arts museum for a dissertation in U.S. civilization.
I remember a quiet place, wandering the streets; we walked for hours amid the bustling of the downtown commerce, the only quiet place the cemetery at Copp's Hill I wanted to see for having missed it back then, Cotton Mather's tomb, all the Puritan figures I had eagerly read about in my history classes, and loved. The kids trudged along courageously, largely ignorant of what all these boring buildings and plaques mean, asking for something fun, finally getting ice-cream.
They'll remember some of it I hope, however vaguely, when they get to study American history and it all starts making sense.
A rare day off and we're off to downtown Boston, Fridman to see the trove of historical places, I to reminisce on a visit to the same places a quarter of a century ago, or so it seems, as a student making my way around the country checking out arts museum for a dissertation in U.S. civilization.
I remember a quiet place, wandering the streets; we walked for hours amid the bustling of the downtown commerce, the only quiet place the cemetery at Copp's Hill I wanted to see for having missed it back then, Cotton Mather's tomb, all the Puritan figures I had eagerly read about in my history classes, and loved. The kids trudged along courageously, largely ignorant of what all these boring buildings and plaques mean, asking for something fun, finally getting ice-cream.
They'll remember some of it I hope, however vaguely, when they get to study American history and it all starts making sense.
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