TomFlannery.com

When the circus comes to town, you go.

Because it’s the circus.

It doesn’t come around often, so put down your phone, pile the kids into the family truckster, and prepare to be wildly entertained by folks who can do things you cannot do. Your senses will tingle. You’ll oooh and aaah and laugh and eat a bunch of stuff that’s no good for you…..and if you’re really lucky the clown will bring you into the ring with him….and you’ll feel goofy and silly but love it all, because nothing brings us together quite like a human touch. This isn’t the big screen….this isn’t fake. These are extraordinary people doing extraordinary things, literally yards away from you. You can’t hit the pause button, and nobody gets a do-over. There is, quite literally, no net.

These people have devoted their lives to making kids smile, and making adults feel like kids so they too can smile (and dance) like nobody is watching. That’s the thing about the circus. It’s impossible for grumpy-ness to take hold. And while they don’t ask you to suspend belief, that doesn’t mean that you’re not gonna say “did he’she really just do that?” over and over again. Yes, they did just do that. And you were there. You didn’t see it on a video. Or hear about it second-hand, You craned your neck and tried to figure out how high up that really is (30 feet was my guess….) . There really wasn’t a time I could totally relax.

There’s a cohesiveness to all of us when we’re there….performers and audience members alike. There’s no “look what I can do” bravado from the performers either. You know what you feel instead? “Look what we as human beings are capable of doing when we’re together.” Neither we nor them ever loses our sense of wonder.

They must have performed these routines 1000 times….but never did I get the sense that anybody was mailing it in. Despite the small mid-week crowd, the greatest show on earth lived up to its billing. And that sounds corny as hell but I don’t care, because last night when I was there all I saw were smiles, and if you can do better than that, step up and make yourself heard.

And yea, so you may need to hit an ATM machine on the way, but so what. You can’t take the debit card with you….and these next few hours are gonna stay with you a lot longer than the $100 you just dropped (and the blinking rubber nose you are gonna buy….you just don’t know it yet). Stop making excuses. For 2 glorious hours bullshit evaporates and we all just grin at each other like idiots and say “did you see that?”

Circus Bellucci is set up for a few more days in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Taylor. For me stepping inside that big tent was like giving a giant middle-finger to my crappy day, and walking out I grasped the clown’s hand and pumped it furiously. “Thank you thank you” I said over and over again. And he said…..”no….thank YOU.”

Perfect.

In a bit..

–tf