Escapees May-June 2024

thoughts for the road

I thought about the high-wire acrobats who share top billing with the lion tamer (at the circus). Yet it is the clown’s silly trick of trying to sweep up a moving spot of light that makes us laugh, giving our hearts time to recover from the fear that an acrobat’s partner might not catch her. We all tend to daydream about taming wild animals while a crowd roars approval, or somersaulting through the air while thousands of hearts nearly stop beating, and no one dares to breathe. The reality is that we know we are more like the clumsy clown who trips and falls and picks himself up to try again. Maybe it is because we see ourselves in him that we love the clown we see in each other. And maybe that is why, in the end, it is the clown who captures our hearts.

An excerpt from Escapees magazine May/June 2004

Co-founder

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May/June 2024 ESCAPEES Magazine