School of Circus Dreams
Circus summer camp is a portal into the mosaic of my heart and hope. In this station of my life helping youngsters look beyond the finite horizon to what is beyond animates a piece of my own biography. I was that misunderstood boy busy box, the over loveable squirming unmanageable never quite able to be quite entirely quiet kid in class.
Whatever national lunacy going down in the media last week was not going on where I put my time and energy. Sure I was worried about our students. We have no metal detectors, no fences, gatekeepers. Circus camp was taking place in an ordinary city where we go about our business assuming we live in an open, free and safe society.
My schedule is pressing. I want to at least send out this emergency flair of hope. We are better than all of this. We are a loving and kind people. We are the mother’s and father’s who traveled and performed and who now teach. We are guardians and our duty to the future is paramount. To be entrusted with 95 new souls means to keep both hands on the wheel and our eyes on the road.
Toys as Gateway to a Good Life
Two young brothers were in my group. If not alert to the impulse you’d peg them as troublemakers, as class disrupters. Once I realized how silly my expectations were, how they were never going to act like the best behaved girl of the same age, from the same neighborhood, in the same class things only could improve. All I had to do was sprinkle some time and attention their way. All I had to do was appreciate those two lads, point them toward opportunity and then watch as their imaginations and playfulness took flight.
The two boys noticed right off I was making room for them and in exchange they met their instructor with a measure of mutual respect. I had 95 separate, distinct, individual experiences with our future. I worked my tail off and I’m grateful I had a shot at sharing my circus dream with my community’s children.
