Perhaps I'm getting sentimental in my middle age, perhaps I had a little too much whisky last night and a little too little sleep or perhaps it was something else all together but I did not expect 5 minutes into a trip to the circus this morning with wife and children to be bawling my eyes out (and not because the clowns were hilarious (they were)). But there I was, glad to be in the back row and the dark of the Big Top, with the boys thankfully oblivious by my side. I say thankfully because I would have had a hell of a job explaining why I was crying when everyone else was laughing.
Sure, part of it was Covid, war, wrong weather everywhere, work and too much of it. But mostly it was the magic. I've written before about how becoming a parent completely changes your outlook on things. You spend your whole life gazing out of a window and suddenly you're looking in. Experiencing the things of childhood as an adult but with your own child telescopes time and feelings in a way that can completely floor you.
I have been to many circuses, Chinese, Russian, Canadian, saucy, basic and brilliant. But this one has heart like nothing I've ever felt. Something else I've written about before is wonder and how important it is to find it, live it and share it. And wonder is something that most circuses are aiming for and unless the performers are really not up to it they usually achieve it. But there's a massive difference between a succession of atomised turns, however well polished and the all embracing hug of absolute joy which is the magic of Giffords.
Many children dream of running away with the circus but this is a circus that runs away with you. You can just tell that the 'one big family' truism is not just that, here it's a lived experience for these performers and I can only begin to imagine the fun they have when the sawdust gets swept away.
It's worth remembering, when sometimes it seems the world is falling prey to people making terrible demonstration of themselves, that there are people practising day in and out with the sole aim of making a magnificent or extraordinary or a really bloody funny demonstration of themselves.
If it's youth you're after, forget face creams or moisturisers, you walk into the Gifford's tent an adult you'll come out a child.
https://giffordscircus.com/
