In the Moment/At the Circus
Tonight we took Alice to see The Big Apple Circus.
For those of you not familiar with the troupe, it's a classic, small-scale, one-ring circus. They have two animal acts--horses and a pack of dogs, all of whom were rescued--in addition to acrobats, contortionists, strong men, aerialists, trapeze artists, a really inventive juggler and a couple of clowns.
Now, I'm a huge Cirque du Soleil fan, although not much into traditional circus. I like the high concepts and the lack of language. I'm not big on clowns and the raucous hurdy-gurdy style music isn't really my thing, although I'll admit that the band leader plays a mean trumpet--an instrument that I'm gaining appreciation for through watching Treme.
This was Alice's first professional circus. She was a little overwhelmed--the volume within the tent was pretty high and the lights are bright and the performers being so close made her feel shy. She also lacks the experience to know how to follow a show with lots of moving parts and shiny lights, to catch the key moments of an act. And since she hasn't seen much live performance yet, the idea of clapping when they do something cool is also fairly new to her.
I recently read My Stroke of Insight, in which the author spends a lot of time considering left/right brain differences and advocating her belief that we all contain within us ever-present peace and enlightenment, the capacity to be in the moment at will, if we just learn to "step to the right," to shut down the left-brain narration and open ourselves to the eternal now that the time-less right brain is constantly experiencing.
And I found myself doing just that. I kept my left brain occupied by encouraging Alice's enjoyment, pointing at the focus of the action, laughing at the clowns, clapping to cue her. I didn't leave it leisure to focus on the comparatively amateurish performances, the ancient humor, the trying-too-hard of the clowns. Yes, those were there and if I want to I can look back with that perspective. But in the moment, I just plugged into the wonder of seeing these acts as if for the first time, to appreciating the performers' enthusiasm, to buying into the tension they were trying to build and the humor they were trying to achieve. I clapped and ooh'd and ahh'd and wow'd for two hours.
It was a great show.
For those of you not familiar with the troupe, it's a classic, small-scale, one-ring circus. They have two animal acts--horses and a pack of dogs, all of whom were rescued--in addition to acrobats, contortionists, strong men, aerialists, trapeze artists, a really inventive juggler and a couple of clowns.
Now, I'm a huge Cirque du Soleil fan, although not much into traditional circus. I like the high concepts and the lack of language. I'm not big on clowns and the raucous hurdy-gurdy style music isn't really my thing, although I'll admit that the band leader plays a mean trumpet--an instrument that I'm gaining appreciation for through watching Treme.
This was Alice's first professional circus. She was a little overwhelmed--the volume within the tent was pretty high and the lights are bright and the performers being so close made her feel shy. She also lacks the experience to know how to follow a show with lots of moving parts and shiny lights, to catch the key moments of an act. And since she hasn't seen much live performance yet, the idea of clapping when they do something cool is also fairly new to her.
I recently read My Stroke of Insight, in which the author spends a lot of time considering left/right brain differences and advocating her belief that we all contain within us ever-present peace and enlightenment, the capacity to be in the moment at will, if we just learn to "step to the right," to shut down the left-brain narration and open ourselves to the eternal now that the time-less right brain is constantly experiencing.
And I found myself doing just that. I kept my left brain occupied by encouraging Alice's enjoyment, pointing at the focus of the action, laughing at the clowns, clapping to cue her. I didn't leave it leisure to focus on the comparatively amateurish performances, the ancient humor, the trying-too-hard of the clowns. Yes, those were there and if I want to I can look back with that perspective. But in the moment, I just plugged into the wonder of seeing these acts as if for the first time, to appreciating the performers' enthusiasm, to buying into the tension they were trying to build and the humor they were trying to achieve. I clapped and ooh'd and ahh'd and wow'd for two hours.
It was a great show.