something amazing, I guess. or to give into human spectacle. thoughts in progress.
We went to the circus last week, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Amá must have taken us plenty of times when I lived in Mexico. Maybe this is why the emotional recall was so intense for me.
We stepped into the big top, its two blue and white spires stupidly reached for heaven. My footsteps rattled on the ramp as we hopped into the mouth of the makeshift structure, and found our seats far back in the risers. I liked the music, a loud and constant loop. A clown waddled about the place, slipping into humor, imagining conflict, and wholesomely pranking little ones in the audience eager for a surprise. A frolicking buffoon at his finest.
Throughout the night, we were treated to a feast of feats. The wheel of death started to move, and a man strolled on the inside and outside of this massive instrument of entertainment, and I felt a fear of death in my gut that should have been his. And that was only the start of the show!
There were countless opportunities for the ensemble to showcase their talents. Sure enough, they continually soared. A young man took on the tightrope and balanced as he juggled. He even rode that weird one-wheel bike across the line! A guy flew over our heads and he made his body a pretzel of the skies with all his contortions and movements. A woman took on an army of hula hoops and became their epicenter in motion. Then another man enthralled us with trick shots and shot an arrow through an apple on the aforementioned woman’s head. An upside-down man, head balancing on a treacherous swing high above us, did all manner of tricks and led the audience into a unifying clap to the music.
On and on, a procession of phenomenal acts unfolded before us and to cap off the night, this insane bunch wheeled out the sphere of death, strapped it in place, and let a daredevil in a motorcycle ride around in it like a crazy person. And then another motorcyclist joined in and the engines roared louder and they rode in synchronicity and the Sunday crowd went wild! I sure as hell did too.
I applauded and gasped and hollered like a child and it felt great to be consumed by the experience. Right about now you’re thinking, Jesus Harold Christ, Jaime: it was just the circus, what’s wrong with you? Easy answer is that it made me feel like a kid again. It made me feel wonder. It reminded me of sharing a bag of popcorn with my parents and sisters and watching its contents quickly run out in the middle of the show.
Nowadays, we see videos of exceptional human beings doing exceptional things on the regular. Hell, these days we even have the impossible thrown in our faces by AI-generated videos. All is possible, yet we’re paralyzed by the prospect of failing to be exceptional. I watched the acrobats do superhuman things, but I love that their performances were tirelessly chiseled by untold years of doubt, effort, and perseverance. The seemingly superhuman made possible by very human resilience. They are exceptional doers, and they show us what’s possible. Yet, they had an imperfect start somewhere. This is the power of interpersonal spectacle, one in which achievement and excellence are three-dimensional and not a digital abstract.
YouTube can indeed feed me daring feats beyond comprehension, thousands of them per brain cell (and I’m certain there’s a video out there to wow just about anyone!). But nothing comes close to the beauty of experiencing a human being, flesh and blood ten feet in front of me, pushing themselves to the limit while implementing years of discipline, effort, and talent for my entertainment. The circus is interpersonal interaction at all times. An offering from one person to another. As they transmit performance, we invest our honest, emotional attention on them and in turn, connection flourishes. I don’t know that it will ever be the same with digital experiences like video or virtual reality. But concerning the performing arts and live events, there is less suspension of disbelief required with acrobatics than say, the theater. In the theater, one must see beyond the potential artifice of design and costume and whatever the hell the playwright wants to tell you. Don’t get me wrong, I love a fair share of Aristotle’s artistic ornaments™ to tell the story: but watching acrobats, much like dancers, transmit pure distilled connection to an audience, is as close to the bone as it gets. We only need one person centerstage to root for.
Maybe I’m talking out of my romantic rear. But even so, I’d rather live my life basking in the splendor of what human beings are capable of than some droll alternative.
Deep in the final act, two motorcycles twirled and rattled inside the metal sphere of a cage. They went left-right and under and over, avoiding collisions by what seemed to be mere inches. And there was a woman a few rows in front of us, scrolling Facebook the entire time, missing everything. I don’t know her life, maybe she was checking on a family member, or she had a long day. Burnout is a default for all of us these days. I get it. In the moment, I desperately wanted to let her know she was missing out! But that would have been super weird because I’m a stranger and people ’round these parts don’t like to be told what to do. That’s why I live here too, so… I get it. But why is it so hard for us to surrender to human spectacle over the noise? Have we forgotten how inspiring and life-affirming it can be? Are we so irreversibly jaded that we don’t know how to root for each other?
We can go through life withholding emotional investment, that’s cool too. It’s a viable option in this social climate that only demands our rational, competitive best. Maybe I should not spend so much time recapturing my childhood circus nostalgia. Maybe this is all fluff and you better mind your hardened transactional postures instead. I could have frowned at the clown like the middle-aged man that I am. I could see how the clown had to pivot when the funny bits failed to land and I could have crossed my arms in disapproval of his efforts. I could have dismissed the traveling troupe that set up shop at the mall parking lot, scoffed at the popcorn prices, bitched about the heat, or complained about the plastic seats, or simply checked out to review the newest happenings on Facebook.
Or one could choose to accept the offering, and go along with the clown.
