blossom heralding the circus new year
I live in the flat of my very good friend. The blossom has started to bloom on the street, just as it was when I went to see her to tell her I was leaving for the circus in a month or so. Her little boy - smaller than he is now - playing on the floor by our feet as we celebrated.
The sun has also started shining. I keep thinking about lying in my wagon at 3pm ish on a Monday wearing my dressing gown and reading a book with some fruit and a cup of tea. My window open, you could hear the occasional dog bark or song or titter of laughter. Maybe just the sounds of a quiet road or the best would be the gentle breeze of trees if you were nestled by a hedgerow.
It’s not long until Giffords will get ready to begin tour again and the whole cycle repeats itself. With a group of slightly different people and a whole new show. On these Spring days, I suppose because my whole spring and summer was encompassed by Giffords last year it’s hard to not feel like I am about to pack up a car and drive up to Stroud. Everything to do to with signs of Spring seems to evoke dreams about the circus in my mind and I feel quite a pang of takemeback.
I went on a very muddy walk over the weekend and that was the first time my shoes had stepped in proper mud since September. It didn’t annoy me at all, in fact, it was fun. I guess in this way, doing a summer tour a year of circus kind of is like what people say about having a baby. That you forget all the pain and just think about the good things. (When I say pain I mean that lightly in comparison to childbirth - as in cracked hands, bad backs, mud soaked shoes and clothes etc). If you are a full time circus performer or worker then well that’s just hardcore and big respect.
Despite the fact that the world is a tumultuous place at the moment I feel I can only focus on how to create fun and silliness. Which feels simultaneously naive and generous. Nothing else really interests me and I still haven’t started reading the news regularly.
Dolly left me a voice note the other day. She had a dream that I was wearing a long red dress in a field and led her to a shepherd hut which a little door that said “knock for peace.” I led her inside and there were all pansies growing inside. Isn’t that lovely.
I have been putting so much pressure on my writing recently. It feels like I’ve been wringing my ideas by the neck and I can imagine their faces like Bart Simpson saying through a constricted vocal passage “I can’t speak if you keep on strangling me! Blahhh!!!” I’ve also been busy filming and teaching which has been interesting and good and easier than plucking ideas out of thin air and crafting them.
Now I’m looking for a new part time job. It is quite scary not to be busy. The choice is completely yours what you do. Time is the only resource that is finite. Took me 33 years to hear that quote.
I’m going to be cover girl this year, which will be fun. Joining the tour at random intervals as the front of house and sauce staff take a few days off for weddings or birthdays - a few days in a house. I’ll be excited to catch up with old mates but meeting all the new people too. Finding out reasons people ended up at the circus is always very intriguing.
I know the minute everyone arrives and starts posting on social media I will be furiously jealous and kicking myself that I’m not there for every moment. Circus fomo is probably the worst kind of fomo isn’t it. So much fun and cheekiness and pranks and love and music to be missing out on. Oh dear
