Monday, February 21, 2011

Come Fly with Me



They call it flying. They say, "Did you fly today?" or "How many times did you fly?" or "Don't you love flying?"

Two years ago my husband, William, and I were strolling along the Santa Monica Pier and I made a dead stop in front of a huge cage.

I stared, pointed and said, "That. I want to do that. Please give me that for Christmas."

THAT was trapeze. On the pier a trapeze school had set up and people were flying.


I was little kid when my dad first took me to a circus where beautiful girls flew through the air, shimmery in glitter dust, twirled in hot pink and had my full attention. I wanted to be them....I wanted to fly like that, free, light and fearless.

On Christmas morning of 2009, William handed me an envelope. Inside on a folded piece of paper he'd drawn a woman flying through the air on a trapeze swing. I gasped.

"You remembered! Oh my god, you remembered....I love you so much...yippee! Trapeze and me!"

Then I unfolded the paper and out toppled a bunch of tickets. "What's this?"

I'm pretty sure I still had a gleeful smile pressed across my face.


No, the paper read, you're not getting trapeze classes. But you are going to Las Vegas to stay at the Bellagio. You will be seeing the Cirque du Soleil show "O" and Bette Midler's show as well. Merry Christmas!

"Wow, really? Wow. That's fantastic. Wow, you remembered that I really did want to see these and this is so extravagant. Thank you so much. Amazing."


"Mel," he gave me a sweet look, "you don't really want to do trapeze. You think you want to do trapeze but not really. You could get hurt."

"Yeah. I guess. Yeah."

Two years later, for the first time, I lied to my husband and I flew. Stay tuned.


CHILDREN'S WRITES: A Journal Entry
Dear William,

Our children are doing well but Hamnet is sick from the plague. Soon he may die. I don't know what I should do. He's laying on the sofa sleeping. Anyway, how are you doing?

Love,
Anne

Dear Anne,

That is very sad to hear. Well, I am making loads of money.

Love,
William
Celia, 5th grade

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