Come down and join the circus...

Nothing like burning the candle at both ends.
Despite nerve damage through my entire right side and herniated disk I refuse to just sit there in pain (well not every day anyway) I am running away with the circus. again.

It will come as no surprise to any who know me and a few have already learned the fact that when I was 13 I ran away with the circus. Well I didn't really run away so much as I just disappeared while they were in town. Two weeks of pounding rebar tent poles into blacktop, shoveling animal excrement, accidentally riding lamas, and ultimately being charged the admittance price from my wage despite working as stagehand made me fall in love with the life (and learn to be wary of carrnies)

While life had other plans for me and I've been unable to join a full touring show  when the option has been placed in front of me I've still picked up a thing or 20 over they years. So now when a new start up circus style stage group asked me to join with them and help them develop their group I was honored to be able to say yes and add a little sideshow to their circus.  I've done my own sideshows here and there. just as I was starting to get some decent gigs was when the accident happened.  Since then I've been unable to really do much.  work is not an option unless it's a loose enough place that I can only work when I'm able, even my ability to perform as a fire breather, a skill that takes me no physical effort or exertion, has been reduced to the point where I can not do a full haunted attraction season. So the circus works out because at this point it's very sporadic. I'll be part of a group, not the main or whole act so I can just jump in and out throughout the short performance, and I can just take a few days of rest after.

One of the two main issues I deal with I'm to workout as often as I can to heal, the other I'm to rest. it's hard to be able to do anything in this double bind but I will continue to deal as I can, pushing myself as hard as I can to improve. It's been three years and to be back in a place where I can, even if only for short stints, to be able to rejoin that world, that feeling of joy and awe that comes with being a part of the show, being a part of the greatest spectacle that this planet has ever known. My life is truly blessed to once again be back.  May the show go on.

an update? about time...

I am blessed in many ways, yesterday that showed itself to me in the form of an invite. Despite the injury that has caused me so much pain and has focused me more on what I can do and what has to be done I spent yesterday building a traditional Lakota sweatlodge. While it hurt to do the work it felt good to be outside doing something, I miss that more then anything. Feeling the warm sun on my back while I gathered saplings I was reminded of the beauty of life, the specialness of it all. I care not for the trappings of society, it's the natural world that calls to me. I seek to live a life in balance with this earth, not in spite of it. That is why places like New York are uncomfortable to me, it is man fighting against the natural world rather then finding his place in it. This basic knowledge, that man should live with nature rather then try to push it back, is why I think I was invited and excepted for this role, to help build a new lodge that will serve for the next few years for a small group. Despite my lack of native blood once again I have been excepted for my spirit, a spirit that agrees with the way of life lived by the plains tribes. I really have no reason to put this here, but as no one really knows about this it is not about me telling this to the world, rather this is here to remind me of who I am, where I have been and where I will go. Perhaps more shall go here and grow, perhaps not. But I shall always remember that I am blessed in many ways.

Part of my reason for this page has to do with a crusty I met in the village a few years ago. I can no longer remember his name but he told me his story, not asking me for money. Just talking. He told me of how his girlfriend had killed herself earlier that week, he showed me her picture and the last thing she wrote him, and he was not sad. He had sadness within him, of that I have no doubt but he did not dwell in that sadness. Rather he lived in the glory of life, he may have been a been a homeless gutterpunk but he had a smile on his face as he talked of drinking beer in the park and life on the road. He lived happy and free despite the tragedy of his life. Facebook took some sort of offense to his story, perhaps it was the use of words like fuck and shit, perhaps it was talking candidly about suicide, but whatever the reason a piece of my mind, left on the internet as a reminder to myself and others about the beauty of life was gone from this world forever. I may never remember his name, I may never remember the details of his story as I had put them down that day, but I will remember I drank that night to a world that is so fucking beautiful it hurts and that facebook tried to steal that from me. Perhaps my thoughts will be treated better here, if I remember to ever use it.