By reading the title, please don’t make the mistake of thinking that I may have some marketable Circus skills, I don’t. I’m terrible at slacklining, I can’t juggle, throw axes, do a handstand, tame lions, or anything else really. I have also just added another thing I can’t do to my repertoire: hula hooping. That’s right, I bought an adult hula hoop. Two actually, for $5.
If the Circus ever came through town though, I’d run away from home and join it. I guess for that reason it’s good that the Circus doesn’t come through towns anymore. At least, I don’t think it does? Certainly not in a pandemic anyway. But this has got me thinking about our loss of the Circus. Like people used to genuinely run away and join the Circus often enough that it became common vernacular. Often enough that here we are in 2020 and though I’ve never been to a real circus, I’m ready to trade it all in and join one.
I think we lost something when we lost the Circus. We lost our last great hope of escape. We lost the dream of not having to live an ordinary life, the dream of freedom. The dream of hopping that train car and just going. We also lost the idea of the unknown, that magic might be real, and that there was still wonder in the world.
That last part there is the worst thing.
We have lost our sense of wonder. And I just hope we can all find it again someday.
For now I will hula hoop, and I will daydream, and I will hope to find my wonder out there somewhere.