Ready...Hup!

(Before starting a circus story, as per request (thank you!), here is a small guide to make it more understandable. The picture on the left is Danny and I performing The Hanging Perch whereas the picture further down in the post is me on the Mexican Cloud Swing. Okay. Enjoy!) 

I was hanging upside down by my ankles about 32 feet in the air and I had one thought on my mind: would Tara be waiting for me when I was done? Tara, sweet, short Tara who was currently two rings down from me styling for the audience and flashing them her bright smile, would she be ready to help me when we were done? 

The thing was, the routine itself didn't scare me. Danny and I had been performing the circus act, The Hanging Perch, together for almost a year now and I had two years of experience with the act before him. I wasn't scared, on the contrary, I felt at home. There, as Danny hung upside down by his knees, grasping tightly at my ankles,  I felt at ease. I knew the routine almost as well as I knew the alphabet. I just did an arrangement of handwork tricks, including an upside down split, a back lever, and some fancy styles, and at the moment we were approaching the flipping section of the routine. As I threw myself up quickly just as Danny let go of my ankles, catching my wrists just in time. Before the audience could comprehend what happened, he let go of my wrists as I threw my ankles up for him to catch. We did that three times and as he yelled "Hup!," meaning "Go!," I only thought of what was happening after the act. 

As the crowd cheered for our hands to feet flipping, we got ready for the last trick, our favorite. I tightened the loop around my neck and he winked at me, which roughly translated to "yeah, we're awesome." I let go of the perch, the metal pole suspended in mid air, supporting the two of us, and hung by the back of my neck as he started to spin the arm holding the other side of the loop in a circular motion. I heard him laughing as my body levitated. By the time I was spinning parallel to the ground, like a helicopter blade, I let out a cheer. The wind blew by my face and left my arms glued to my sides. For one moment, one brief moment, I didn't care about anything else, I just wanted to fly.

After our dismounts into the net, we rolled off and styled to the audience. The sweat pooling down Danny's bare chest glistened and shimmered in the spotlights and I laughed as I wiped most of it off of me. He grabbed my hand and we ran to the back of the tent. As we ran, I prayed Tara would be there. 

She was. 

As a newcomer to the act, her routine was significantly shorter than mine and Danny's. She sat there waiting for me with a towel and leotard. I gave her a huge thankful smile as I rushed under the bleachers. My next act was in three minutes, I had no time to run back to the dressing room, so she had to help me change. If any of the viewers merely looked down from their seated positions, they would have gotten quite a show. But that's why Tara was there. She tried shielding me from audience members, from riggers, and most importantly, from fellow performers. 

Changing quickly and getting up to my next act in time was more frightening to me than any of the high flying tricks I was performing all night. I didn't want to fathom being late and letting down the director. And I really didn't want to think about what would happen if children accidentally saw me as I unhooked my halter top. 

I threw the teal leotard on the ground and grabbed for the purple one. I sewed them each myself so although they looked fine from afar, up close they were a bit sad looking. The rhinestones popped out at weird angles and some weren't even sewed in correctly. The low cut back had a light purple piece of material draping low to create a flying effect as I swung though the air. Its hooks were pointy and sometimes scratched my bare back. I threw on my ankle wraps over my fishnet stockings, patted some rasin on my hands, so I wouldn't slide from any of my or Danny's left over sweat, and gave Tara one last look. She checked my costume and told me I was fine. And so, I ran out, just in time. 

My act was to start right when the ringmaster announced me off, but in order to do that, I had to be ready on my contraption, in this case a Mexican Cloud Swing, and it took a full two minutes to climb so high up. The Cloud Swing, a giant rope that had both of its ends hooked up to the frame, creating a giant "U" shape, waited for me, beaconed me. I approached it, holding on tightly to the ladder, and carefully jumped on. Noticing that balancing, the act going on at that moment, wasn't over, I breathed in deeply, closing my eyes to let myself concentrate. With the fast change out of the way, I was free to think about this, my one solo act, the one act I was most frightened of. As I opened my eyes, I noticed red liquid on the cloud swing. Curious, and slightly grossed out, I followed the trail it made right down to my hand. Quickly pulling my hand back, a drop of blood fell on my thigh. My hand was bleeding. A lot.

At one point during the fast change, my hand got caught on one of the pointy hooks in the back of my costume. I ripped it away fast, not thinking, and continued changing. The adrenaline stopped me from feeling, or seeing, anything. I watch the beads of blood trickle down my hand and onto my taped up wrists. At that moment, the lights went black, with one spot light illuminating the ringmaster. It was my turn to start pumping my swing, it was time to start the act. Rather than complaining or wincing, I grabbed the cloud swing tightly and started swinging. One pump, two pumps, three I was moving. High in the tent, the wind brushed against my hair, letting my bangs fly around. The lights burst on, bouncing off the rhinestones on my leotard, and everyone was looking at me. So, there, up in the air, as I performed my four minute routine with a bloody hand, I did the one thing I knew how to do very well. I smiled.