There is no net. There is only you.

There are moments in every day when time resets itself. No matter what you did that day, after a certain point, the outcome will be the same. I could have bought the robe at Ganz to wear backstage. I could have showed up earlier and run my tricks a few more times. But no matter what, the show would have started 10 min late and I would have started my act when I did and I would have finally felt good about it. I would have finally felt confident that I could land my flip solid.

And I did.

But the mat just wasn't under my left foot.

And I'd like to blame the stage hands, but I checked its positioning before I went on. Someone could have kicked it, but nothing looked out of place. I just went crooked. Straight enough that I landed solid and strong, but crooked enough that my left foot missed the mat. Or that both feet would have landed but the mat moved when my right foot hit. I don't know. All I know was that my first thought was one I've had before..."Can I finish this act".

If you're an artist and you've never had this thought, consider yourself lucky. Usually the realistic answer is no, but the response screaming in your head is "OF COURSE YOU CAN! YOU ARE FINE! DO NOT BE A PUSSY!" And so you do. I did.

The last time I actually couldn't. At Sea World (my high school football game moment that I will relive forever), I slid helplessly down the pole and had to be carried off stage. Tonight, though, I did finish. I walked to the front of the stage and bowed, imagining the audience giving me a standing ovation for being so brave and strong. They didn't, either because they are German or because they didn't even notice anything was wrong. I can only hope it's the later.

The fucking mat is too small. I mean, it's the same size as the mats I use at home, and twice as big as the one I usually travel with, but still...it's too small. AND I was an idiot for not ensuring that I was lined up with it. The act was going so well and I didn't want to kill the flow.

Doing this show is my dream. I know that might seem lame to people that have worked over here for years, but it's all I ever wanted. Since I started hanging from shit I wanted to hang from shit in Europe. And now, 3 shows in...

Whatever...my foot is NOT broken. Tomorrow I will change my act a little bit, and in a few days or weeks I will add my salto back in and I will make sure I am lined up with the mat before I let go.

Debut

12/3/09

I'm five hours away from my first show in Europe. (Unless you count a “gala” I did for Air France in the Bristol Airport where I did some cheerleading/partner acro, or circus school shows. I don't.) I should probably play my cards a bit closer to my chest on this one, but I just can't. I'm freaking out. The most nervous I've ever been must have been before my show at Moisture Festival, when I thought the casting director for Zin Zanni was in the house. It's the only time I thought I would puke from nerves. I didn't puke, and the casting director wasn't in the house, but the casting director from Pegasus Variete was, and here I am in Germany! Whew.

Essentially, this is where my rope act began. When Nils and I went to Germany and Spain forever many years ago, I packed a rope. I wasn't particularly in love with rope at the time, but I was for sure not into tissu, so rope was the next most portable thing. Apart from hanging it from Nils' mom's balcony in Barcelona I didn't really get on it until we were in Berlin and I found Katakomben. It was a great place to train on a very terrible rope—it felt like it was made of sandpaper, rocks and razor blades. However, so am I, so I smashed my teeth together and started piecing together bits of what is now my act. Berlin was the first place I started throwing my back flip off the rope. Back then I was trying to re-catch it. Eventually, I grew to like just landing on my feet. It would be nice to learn a catch, though.

I applied this act to a zillion festivals and either heard nothing, or got rejections from all of them. I didn't give a shit, though, because before those letters started coming in, I'd gotten this contract. Somebody thought I was good! Everyone else could eat me.

So, it's with that in the back of my mind that I try to calm my nerves today. “They asked me to come here”. “They already like my act.” “I just have to do it how I've done it a million times.” Okay, so that's working now, with 4 hours to go. I'm sure in about 3 hours 45 min, I'll be holding back the vom.

9/10/09--The Death of the Grump.

I had tried to tell Amanda several times that we were getting into Santa Fe in time for “some crazy thing with stilts and giant puppets, where the whole town goes out and parties” and she just wasn't connecting what I was saying to the annual Zozobra celebration. But when she finally figured it out she went nuts. For the 6 hour drive to Santa Fe, I emotionally prepared myself to dance in a field surrounded by hippies, fully anticipating a little Burning Man.

Now, I've never been to Burning Man, but if I ever get the chance, I fully plan to not take it. Spending any amount of time in a desert with any amount of people wearing any amount of patchwork sounds like torture on so many levels. Throw in things like “art” and “compassion” and “PLUR” and I'd sooner be water boarded. Hippies taken one at a time can be judged on their individual merits, but an entire desert city of them would just be too much. However, I respect Amanda on many levels, one of which is her non-hippiness and her enthusiasm for this crazy event led me to bury my skepticism and give peace a fucking chance.

Holy crap am I glad I did! I knew right off the bat that this would defy all my prejudgments when I saw people who aren't white walking around. And not just one or two! Also, no dreadlocks. There were some fairy princesses running around, and some freaked out 18 year olds sitting on the ground crying and throwing up as the cops around them paid no mind at all, but I also saw people in baseball caps and little kids in wagons. NPR fans and dudes in low-riders. It seemed pretty much that every man, woman and child in Santa Fe had crammed onto this football field.

(Apparently it also seemed that way to homeland security, what with all the snipers on top of the surrounding buildings. Weird.)

Zozobra is a giant puppet that stands 50 feet tall. He is meant to represent all that is gloomy, depressing and generally a pain in the ass. For weeks before the celebration there are boxes in grocery stores in Santa Fe where you can write your worries and drop them in to be collected and burned with Zozobra. School kids do this in class, too—writing the names of their teachers or siblings to be burned (hopefully) unknowingly. Then, the entire city starts fresh. A brilliant idea. I'd love to see the bothers and annoyances to be burned if they did this in Chicago, all of them written on the back of parking tickets and building permits.

But even though this is an 85 year old Santa Fe tradition, this would never happen Chicago, and here is why: The very first thing to occur (following the awkward singing of the national anthem) is that the mayor of Santa Fe emerges from between Zozobara's gigantic legs. Now, while Mayor Daley rolls out of bed with Evil every morning, the Santa Fe mayor has him one upped by wearing what looks like a sorcerer's robe and saying positive things and not being heckled or haunted by his own evil deeds. The mayor talks about how Zozobra must be punished for stealing happiness from the people of Santa Fe, for making their babies cry, for making them lose their wallets and making their tires go flat. He sends the crowd into a frenzy, 10,000 people screaming “BURN HIM! BURN HIM!” and pumping their fists into the air. It's a sort of terrifying scene, to be honest. I imagine this same scenario being played out under the Mujaheddin only with real people at stake rather than an elaborate puppet. For a minute I feel sick and very gross. Then I remember where I am and what decade it is and that this is all for fun.

Zozobra waves his 40 foot arms in the air, fingers the size of our van flopping in the wind. His jaw unhinges and snaps back shut, groaning and moaning. “MUUURRRAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!” “MUUUURRRAAAAHHHHH!", like the House Bunny remebering names. I start to feel sorry for him. I have a problem with proscribing human emotions to non human things...puppies, stuffed animals, salt shakers. Poor things. They all know what's about to come to them. All Zozobra can do is wait for the inevitable...after 85 years, he knows damn well what's coming, and so does everyone around me.

“BURN HIM! BURN HIM!”

A flame flies across the field and hits him in the kidney, then more flames shoot out of his head. It takes a while. First his jaw keeps moving and his mouth fills up with fire. It burns up behind his green flashing eyes. Bits of his head fall off and balls of flame drop to his feet, staring a new fire there. Finally he's totally engulfed and crashing to the ground. He looks like a burnt out car, but you can still see his eyes glowing through the orange flames.

Lost wallets. Mean teachers. Foreclosures. Citizenship battles. Divorces. Broken toys. Sexual droughts. Pink slips. 401Ks. Broken bones. They don't matter for a while. They burn with the evil Zozobra. A shower of fireworks erupts.

We all look at each other. Seven girls who had no idea what to expect and one who did. We fall into a hug, 2000 miles from home, with no real understanding of how we got here, other than in a van, and no comprehension of why we are so lucky. I couldn't help it, I was getting all “PLUR-y”. Tears stampeded down my cheeks. We were exhausted and dirty and shell shocked by the enormity of our adventure and free to move forward without gloom. Thanks Zozobra.

Good night, bad luck.

Sept 7th:

I lost my wallet. My debit cards. My driver's license. MY DOMINICK'S CARD! And so it begins.

I need 8 hands and 100 pockets. I need an external hard drive for my brain. I need someone who follows me around and picks up the things I leave laying around. Amanda called the bank and pretended to be me, canceled everything. Nils is over-nighting me my passport and expired driver's license. On Wednesday everything will be back to normal again.

I picture everyone hitting me with a trapeze as I sleep.

We taught workshops today. I love teaching in new places because the students really seem excited and respectful. They look at me with expectation, like I'm going to unveil the secrets that will make them aerial stars. They still hold me high in their minds because I haven't farted or burped in front of them. I haven't let loose a rampage of creative swear words. My pants haven't fallen off while demonstrating a trick. They still think I have my shit together.

And I look at them as an entirely new group of people who will soon hit me in the face.

Surprisingly, I didn't get hit in the face until much later in the night. I managed to duck the flailing limbs with cat-like agility. It helped that I had some really fantastic, strong students. Nice work, Colorado. I taught them handstand on the bar and would stand back and admire each one as they hit the position, hands pressing the bar back and up, one leg wrapped around both ropes, the other extended backwards. Some would bend their back leg to their head and I'd fill with a bizarre combination of pride and rage, like a painter who makes a self portrait that looks more beautiful in oil than they could ever look in person. Why can't I touch my damn foot to my damn head?

We teched the show, then drove back to Boulder. As soon as I put the van in park and shut down the engine I heard that familiar, dreadful hiss. I wish it had been a huge poisonous snake waiting just below the car to take a chunk out of my ankle. Instead, we were getting another flat tire. Our second in less than 24 hours.

Helena put her thumb over the hole. We told her to stay their all night, and she would have, but then we realized that if we were to drive the van, she'd have to move. It was going to go flat, and we just had to accept that. We excused Helena from her post and everyone sashayed carefree from the van. There was beer to drink and a honky tonk band to listen to.

At the brewery, I attempted to lift Amanda in a “dirty dancing” over my head, but instead of jumping, she just sort of thew herself chest first into me. Elena started laughing and throwing her arms around in such as way as to ensure that hitting me in the face was inevitable. Then I lifted her. Then Laura hit me in the face. The pain sensors in my face have retreated so far back into my skull that I hardly even notice any more.

We walked back to the house as we'd walked away from it: as a huge gang down the middle of the street, screaming and singing and waking up the neighbors. We passed the free stove and the free vacuum cleaner and imagined the circus acts we could create with each. As we passed our van, the problem we'd abandoned in favor of drunkenness, we realized that the tire had magically stopped deflating. There it sat, ¾ full of air, as if it was compromising with us. “Okay, I'll stop deflating, if you buy a spare tomorrow.” Deal van, it's a deal.

See, sometimes getting drunk really can solve everything.

El Circo Cheapo Tour Day One: Sept 6th.

Miraculously, everything fit in the van. All the people, all the stuff. It's amazing how small a circus can get when you shove it it boxes and bags. You think of a circus as being huge, but most of it is just air and fear and imagination.

Moment of Panic #1. We fill up the tank at California and Division before getting on the road. Key into the ignition, turn it, nothing. Do it again. Nothing.

“Elena, can you think of a reason the van isn't starting”. Elena looks at me white-faced (not wearing clown makeup).
“Is it in park?” It is. I take it out of park and put it back in. Van starts. We all breathe.

For the first few hours of driving, everyone is singing and chatting and laughing. We listen to old skool hip-hop. No one farts. Slowly it gets quieter, conversations dwindle, eyelids droop. The farting begins. We drive through Iowa cracking the windows every 30 min or so. We stop at Dairy Queen and drive through Nebraska cracking the windows every 15 min or so.

When you're on a trip around the country for 4 weeks and you see a craft brewery, you get off the interstate. You drive down little streets. You get lost. You waste a lot of time, but ultimately consume delicious beer from Kearny, Nebraska and play pool. Big deal if end up at your destination an hour later than planned.

Well, had we known a nail would find it's home in our front passenger side tire at 1AM, we may have opted for Wendy's or Subway and saved ourselves that hour. But there's no way of knowing. There is a way of making the situation a bit better, which is looking real quick under the van before, leaving Chicago, to confirm that there is a spare, but I was in a hurry and that would have taken like 10 seconds or something--and I would have realized that there wasn't a spare, and I would have had to go get one, and that would have been more time and money. So, screw it. We're probably not going to get a flat tire in the middle of the night, anyway. I mean, when's the last time I got a flat tire?

I must have been overdue.

So, at 1AM Helena called AAA. They told us that we wouldn't be able to get it fixed until Tuesday, because of Labor Day. We pictured ourselves between greyish sheets at the USA #1 Motel. We pictured the van getting towed to Walmart at 7AM. I pictured everyone taking a turn hitting me with a trapeze after I fell asleep. But when Helena told AAA that that's unacceptable, they sent a guy right out who put a new tire on for us!

Everyone learn this phrase: “That's unacceptable”.

James was awesome. He'd been working 23 hours straight and showed up with a smile on his face. “I don't mind”, he said. “I like helping people.” I exhaled a long held breath. I thought about laying on my belly on top of the loft in the van as Elena drove, feeling like Superman flying down the expressway, Lizzy and I putting our fists determinedly forward and looking down on an imaginary village below. I remember looking up and seeing 7 of my best friends sleeping, driving, reading, cuddling and thinking, “I'm so happy right now”.

“I don't mind, I like helping people”. I thought about why I'm doing this tour. I thought about spending the next month indulging the absolute core of why I exist. Anything could have happen. I couldn't mind a bit.