The Mudshow Diaries

Southern escapade (continued.)

2012-02-20T06:14:00.004-05:00

February 19, Saint-Ismier.

Southern escapade (continued.)

2012-02-20T06:08:00.003-05:00

February 19, Saint-Ismier.

Southern escapade (continued.)

2012-02-20T06:06:00.006-05:00

February 19, Saint-Ismier.

On the beach in Nice.

2012-02-20T06:06:00.001-05:00

February 19, Saint-Ismier.

Southern escapade.

2012-02-20T06:04:00.001-05:00

February 19, Saint-Ismier.

An escapade to the South, to Nice and my friend Isabelle, to Avignon and the grandiose austerity of the Popes' Palace, breathtaking (more so because on the day we arrived the city was in the grips of the Mistral, a wind from the North that rules over the Rhone region of France with painful force,) back to the garrigue around Pont du Gard for a hike among thyme and rosemary and the benevolent olive trees that reigned with loveliness and legend over my childhood, on to the village of Grignan with its castle and its tortuous streets.
An escapade, with the kids and my parenting demons, Dylan and I like rams, and I am not sure which needs to learn more, but we had fun, the three of us, listening to swinging French children songs, Hélène Bohy and her sailors, swear words under my breath at each missed turn on the road, but we have time, what do we care.

Kids corner.

2012-02-13T05:59:00.000-05:00

February 12, Saint-Ismier.

New year, new clothes.

2012-02-13T05:58:00.002-05:00

February 12, Saint-Ismier.

The kids.

2012-02-06T02:49:00.005-05:00

February 6, Saint-Ismier.

A month of school has passed, and my fears about Nicolas not developing right have dissolved as he goes a' skipping into class each morning jumping up to the sweet fabulous Fanny, his teacher, with a resounding Bonjour! and she tells me he's learning just fine. Dylan is in demanding first grade and still catching up but he's doing it so fast his teacher says she can see smoke coming out of his ears. We work at home every day; he's endearingly eager to learn, and likes math best.
The week ends go just as fast. Yesterday we went out to the movies to see Le Tableau, a gorgeous intelligent trip through painting, had a smorgasbord of a lunch with Dylan's new fancy, sauerkraut, did school, ran out to a meadow up the road from my mother's house where we go sleighing every day it seems since I finally bought the kids a sleigh on Wednesday, then came home to a kid painting session before munching on fresh bread and cheese for dinner and the usual protracted reading time before bed.
I don't have a minute to spare with them, they're two free electrons bouncing up my walls and if it is exhausting most of the time, it is also damn lucky as can be. If I wasn't profoundly agnostic I'd say we're blessed.

La Chartreuse.

2012-02-06T02:49:00.001-05:00

February 6, Saint-Ismier.

Winter.

2012-02-06T02:48:00.002-05:00

February 6, Saint-Ismier.

It snowed here in the Alps last week, before a Siberian cold descended upon the country, breaking records not seen for decades. Finally a sleigh for the kids, and we're out on a pasture above my mother's house every day it seems.
I had forgotten how much I enjoy winter, when it's white and sunny and stepping outside slaps you in the face.

Mud puddles.

2012-01-23T02:50:00.003-05:00

January 22, Saint-Ismier.

Both kids sick, again, but still, mud puddles.

Lives.

2012-01-19T08:02:00.004-05:00

January 19, Saint-Ismier.

Fridman left yesterday to go back to Hugo and the circus.
Another life.
I am reminded of the infinity of sad situations we could be facing and I do not feel sad, just altered. My mind wanders to a son dying at the age of eleven while playing a dangerous game of daring, my friend Virginia told me one day, friends of hers left with the pieces of a life devastated, living on for the other child, burdened by the impossible; a brother dying on the road at the age of twenty-nine at the end of a life graced by gentle muses and wasted by melancholy and drugs, and my mother left with a life bearing yet more sorrows, as lives will, lives of pain the world over, and I feel joyful for all there is that is light and beauty.

Looking for dragons.

2012-01-19T08:01:00.003-05:00

January 14, Saint-Ismier.

Another try at finding dragons, an eleventh-century fortress in Mornas, then the Grignan castle, where we arrived at night unfortunately, and under a frightfully cold wind.
Nicolas knocked at the fortress door, looking for dragons.

The Grignan castle, once home of Madame de Sévigné.

The Uzès castle.

2012-01-19T07:36:00.004-05:00

January , Saint-Ismier.

Nicolas asked where were the dragons?

Saint-Antoine l'Abbaye.

2012-01-08T18:09:00.002-05:00

January 8, Saint-Ismier.

Roman holiday.

2012-01-08T17:43:00.004-05:00

January 8, Saint-Ismier (France.)

In France since late December, and this week end, the first since school started, an excursion to the South and the sun, and a step back in time: we began at the abbey in Saint-Antoine l'Abbaye, an eleventh-century Gothic beauty, stern and chilling, and today trekked in the fragant hills of Provence to the Pont du Gard, a Roman aqueduct that is one of France's foremost tourist attraction, not a stone missing in a construction dating back to the early first century. To top off the road trip we headed to the city of Arles to see the Roman amphitheater.
Nicolas wanted to see the dragon in the castle and we had to explain that it was not a castle but a church, a bridge and an arena. No dragons, but powerful ghosts still.

Florida and the kids.

2011-12-15T13:58:00.003-05:00

December 15, Ft Myers.

Fridman comes back from a month in Peru today and soon we will be in France and stay there until spring.
I dreaded staying in Florida for a whole month by myself with the boys. Time dreaded metamorphosed into time enchanted, like the butterflies Dylan loves to catch, precious time, daily walks in a Florida wildlife and nature preserve not far from the house, and with a net he found at a yard sale Dylan became a butterfly catcher, my son the poet, catching butterflies, the first time he tried, letting them loose, the walks a daily wonder, seeing an alligator by the marsh on the side of the trail, careful to step around a snake seemingly sleeping on our path, taking in the beauty of the native Florida scenery, the kids engrossed in a cricket, and the house cat. There were hard times too, Dylan can be difficult, and especially so when his father is not around, but these were all the more enchanted times because I thought they were going to be just that, a prolonged trial of boredom not altogether avoided morphing into discipline nightmares.
When we weren't a the nature center saying hello to the rescue bald eagles before hitting the trails the boys played with their Legos, doing and undoing them over and over again, and we read books and did school and read more books and went to the playground and went to garage sales and the days went by in a dream of soft breezes and carefree, warm afternoons.
This morning we visited Lee County Manatee Park and didn't see any manatees but discovered another beautiful peaceful place to keep in our heart for when we are deep in school and winter.

In memoriam.

2011-12-03T20:31:00.004-05:00

December 3, Ft Myers.

My friend Lily died Thursday after complications from a stroke, the second she'd had.
The first one defined her life, leaving her unable to speak, walk, remember, redefining her life and making her an even more beautiful person than I imagine her to be, before, refining her down to the essential, the pure joy of being alive, like a child.
She died and left that joy in all of us an empty place, resonating with the sound of her voice velvety and lulling, the touch of her hand strong, stubbornly irresistible, the feel of her lingering pace. She walked at her own pace after that first stroke, she forgot things, she moved though life slowly, lingering behind, she drove you crazy sometimes and then you would catch yourself and feel remorseful and cruel and wait for her as she walked to you softly smiling and there was nothing you could say but yes, we are here, now.
She was a photographer, before that first stroke. A photographer she met another photographer, who would become my friend Marie and would introduce me to Lily, and they walked the road together for many years.
In the end I didn't know much about Lily all these years but that she was a photographer and then she had a stroke that left her like an infant, the heart of a child in the body of an adult woman for the rest of her life, her heart that betrayed her again and then stopped. I didn't know much about Lily but that she was to live forever with us, our angel lightness, walking life softly.

Kristine's visit.

2011-12-02T08:43:00.000-05:00

December 1, Ft Myers.

Enchanted days on Sanibel Island.
With my friend Kris here for a week from New Jersey we discovered an enchanted national wildlife refuge full of slim graceful birds and the occasional alligator. The vistas are what I sometimes imagine paradise to be when I daydream there were one. It's turned Florida cool, but before it did we enjoyed our usual spot at the beach, and coffee on a canopied deck, trying to keep the kids under control.
She is leaving tomorrow.

There but for fortune.

2011-11-18T21:56:00.003-05:00

November 18, Ft Myers.

As my neighbor, Connie, was driving us to the farmer's market in downtown Ft Myers we came upon an old homeless man crossing a six-lane highway with a walker, one painstaking step at a time. We stopped and hoped others would do the same, then Connie drove around to come back and check on him, to see that he had made it safely to the other side, and he finally did, slowly, seemingly oblivious of the danger he was in every step of the way - talking with Connie about being grateful, reminded of the Joan Baez song, There but for Fortune, and I am grateful, for there but for fortune go I, risking my life for crossing the street, alone in the world, muttering to myself, adrift.
Reminded never to pass judgment, for there go I, but for the grace of my life - yet.

Sand.

2011-11-17T09:13:00.001-05:00

November 14, Ft Myers.

The presents.

2011-11-17T09:12:00.000-05:00

November 14, Ft Myers.

Ft Myers Beach.

2011-11-17T09:11:00.002-05:00

November 14, Ft Myers.

Dylan is six.

2011-11-17T09:09:00.001-05:00

November 14, Ft Myers.

We celebrated Dylan's birthday again today.
We rented a car and went to the beach, better late than never. We drove back from the beach full of sand and sun and went to an arcade gallery. We came out full of noise and fun and went home to another cake and candles, and the presents, the presents, at last.
Dylan had a great time, and I filled my memory with a moment of joy, precious, in the midst of what has been a rather difficult time, full of anxiety over insignificant thing and momentous clouds, car problems bogging us down, Fridman's imminent departure leaving me alone here with the kids for a full month, Nicolas worrying me as he grows up, or fails to.

At the fair.

2011-11-11T21:37:00.000-05:00

November 6, Tallahassee.

Six.

2011-11-11T21:36:00.002-05:00

November 6, Tallahassee.

The Anastasini Circus (Rebecca.)

2011-11-11T21:34:00.001-05:00

November 6, Tallahassee, Florida.

One more day.

2011-11-11T21:31:00.001-05:00

November 6, Tallahassee, Florida.

Off, after all, after one more day, a day in Hugo, for Dylan, to say goodbye to his friend Nathan, and play, for a ceviche with Marcos, for a day in my old quinta. Off, but not there quite yet, stopping in Tallahassee for one more day of circus, at the fair where Rebecca and the Poemas are working with the Anastasi family show. We decide to throw Dylan a surprise birthday party with his other friends, and go to the fair after the show.
One more day of circus before the winter.
A day brimming with fun, and nostalgia already.

Hugo.

2011-11-11T21:19:00.002-05:00

November 5, Hugo.

Sandro's house.

2011-11-03T13:48:00.001-04:00

November 3, Dallas.

Sandro's house.

2011-11-03T13:47:00.003-04:00

November 3, Dallas.

The old Ford truck.

2011-11-03T13:47:00.002-04:00

November 3, Dallas.

Diesel.

2011-11-03T13:46:00.000-04:00

November 3, Dallas.

Days in Dallas.

2011-11-03T13:45:00.000-04:00

November 3, Dallas.

Days go by, unchanged, not my house and too much TV for the kids, nowhere to go with Fridman off to here or there with the car, helping Castro change the engine on my old Ford truck. Days go by and still not hitting the road, and maybe there is the itch, the restlessness, the sleepless nights wondering what to do with no new job in sight.

Alain.

2011-11-03T13:35:00.002-04:00

October 24, , Dallas.

Seeing Sheyla again after so much time has passed, married now with Alain, and Friedman, Nicolas' natural match as soon as they meet, playing, best friends, and they're inseparable, long lost cousins, Dylan the loner for once.

Family update.

2011-10-26T11:24:00.000-04:00

October 24, Dallas.

Laundry.

2011-10-26T11:19:00.003-04:00

October 24, Dallas, Texas (138 miles, Sandro's house.)

The sky over Hugo.

2011-10-22T21:00:00.000-04:00

October 22, Hugo.

Home run.

2011-10-22T20:47:00.002-04:00

October 21, Hugo.

Home run to Hugo.
Through the town of Durant, the sign for a local discount movie theater's choice of attractions: Abduction. Contagion. Paranormal Activities 3.
Welcome to Oklahoma.

A trailer with a view.

2011-10-22T20:47:00.001-04:00

October 21, Hugo, Oklahoma (108 miles, Kelly Miler Circus winter quarters.)

Last show ( finale.)

2011-10-22T20:46:00.002-04:00

October 20, Ardmore.

Last show (midway.)

2011-10-20T22:36:00.001-04:00

October 20, Ardmore.

Last show (Nikki.)

2011-10-20T22:35:00.000-04:00

October 20, Ardmore.

Last show (Raul.)

2011-10-20T22:33:00.001-04:00

October 20, Ardmore.

Last show.

2011-10-20T22:31:00.001-04:00

October 20, Ardmore.

The blues.

2011-10-20T22:29:00.001-04:00

October 20, Ardmore.

Rehearsal.

2011-10-20T16:19:00.001-04:00

October 20, Ardmore.

Tied.

2011-10-20T16:18:00.002-04:00

October 20, Ardmore.

Joel and the camels.

2011-10-20T16:18:00.001-04:00

October 20, Ardmore.

Last day, new tent.

2011-10-20T16:17:00.002-04:00

October 20, Ardmore.

The new tent arrived back again from Mexico yesterday (our friend Marcos drove it back.)
Yesterday I drove some three hundred miles, made a portrait of Jacob and interviewed him, got things organized end of the season-mode, went trick or treating and generally tried to keep my kids from hurting themselves. I call it a good day under the circus sun.
Today is the last day of the season, as always it feels slightly nostalgic, and frantic.

A better picture (Jacob.)

2011-10-19T22:27:00.006-04:00

October 19, Ardmore.

Last jump and more.

2011-10-19T22:27:00.002-04:00

October 19, Ardmore.

Last jump, big jump of the closing season, last stand in Ardmore, the North family fief.
Minor incident on the road, but everybody made it safe.
There was trick-or-traeting for the kids in the afternoon.

A trailer with a view.

2011-10-19T22:18:00.002-04:00

October 19, Ardmore, Oklahoma (294 miles, corner of Commerce and Veterans.)

A trailer with a view.

2011-10-18T15:37:00.000-04:00

October 18, Grove, Oklahoma (62 miles, sports complex.)

Red, white and green.

2011-10-17T17:59:00.004-04:00

October 17, Wheaton.

Radar's cats.

2011-10-17T11:56:00.001-04:00

October 17, Wheaton.

A trailer with a view.

2011-10-17T11:40:00.001-04:00

October 17, Wheaton, Missouri (39 miles, Gizmo's Event Center.)

A better picture (Buckner.)

2011-10-16T13:20:00.004-04:00

October 16, Carthage.

A trailer with a view.

2011-10-16T13:20:00.001-04:00

October 16, Carthage, Missouri (69 miles, Myers park.)

Jacob at night.

2011-10-15T21:52:00.002-04:00

October 15, Eldorado Springs.

Remnants.

2011-10-15T18:31:00.001-04:00

October 15, Eldorado Springs.

Last touches.

2011-10-15T18:30:00.001-04:00

October 15, Eldorado Springs.

Drive.

2011-10-15T11:35:00.004-04:00

October 15, Eldorado Springs.

Another deceptively bland drive through the fall hills of Missouri.

A trailer with a view.

2011-10-15T11:35:00.001-04:00

October 15, Eldorado Springs, Missouri (79 miles, between Fugate Motors and Summerfresh Market.)

An uncommon story (complete.)

2011-10-14T14:44:00.011-04:00

October 14, Camdenton.

There was once a boy who loved to ride on top of rickety trucks loaded with a circus tent and his family's belongings. They would travel all over his country, Peru, in South America, to villages in the Amazonian jungle and in the Sierra mountains, to the ocean, to the cities, and pitch the tent for a few days or weeks. He would go to school in the morning and work in the show in the evening. He loved to hide in the darkness beyond the campfire light and listen to the men gossip and talk until the wee hours of the night. He loved to travel and get to be the new kid in town. Then there came a time when he yearned for bigger skies, and he came to the United States. There he worked harder than he ever thought was possible, saved enough to buy a home, and made his way into a new family.
His is a typical American immigrant story. Only he wears makeup and a costume for a living and works thirty-five feet up in the air.
His name is Fridman Torales Rios. He is a circus performer.
His name is Fridman, he is the father of my children and the companion of my road.
Fridman is thirty-three years old, born and raised in what is one of the poorest social group among one of the poorest countries in the world. That he says: In Peru the circus is about the lowest you can get.
And:
I thought everybody's life was like ours: I never thought for a moment that we were exceptional for being in the circus.
A life of hardships, an exceptional life.
But then again, this he says: We had nothing, but we had everything.
There was my mother's love, there was food on the table. There was work, there was travel, friends, and the circus. A childhood memory, maybe the only one of want: when he was a boy Fridman longed for a bicycle. Not many toys, no toys for Christmas, but a new pair of pants, some new clothes to last you the year. His mother couldn't afford to buy him a bicycle, his father he didn't bother to ask. The circus owner's son had a brand new bicycle, and he so longed for it, and he still remembered that longing years later when he bought a bicycle for his own son.
He made his own toys.
We had nothing but we had everything.
In Peru in the eighties circus life was a camping tent for a home, his family ten feet by ten feet long, richer families as much as twenty feet long, most often home-made, and in the tent one arranged partitions if it was big enough, but the floor was always dirt, and cooking was done on a wood stove, inside a separate tent. There was competition as to who would have the nicest tent, with the nicest decorations, the most windows. Living on his own Fridman soon became well-known for crafting custom tents, and sold them to fellow circus people.
Or simply life was a mattress under the bleachers, under the circus tent, for the city workers, or the odd youth, like Fridman after he left his parents at the age of twelve to go find work on his own.
Like a soldier you carried your mattress on your back, and when the night came you laid out your mattress under the bleachers and there you slept.
That, and you carried your water.
You had to suffer to get water, to bathe, to cook, to do everything, you couldn't waste it. Reminiscing.
Water has always been for me the most precious thing there is, water is sacred.
You had to fetch your daily water at a water truck, or at the river. At the bigger circuses the city would provide a water hose, but in all the others, smaller circuses, one had to carry his own water, bartering a gallon of water for a free entrance to the show at the nearest home, or just buying it. In the Amazon things could be easier, there was often a river where one could wash clothes and bathe. To get power the bigger circuses had generators, like American circuses, and circuses like his father's would get the city's electric company to come and connect them, or would simply send someone to climb the nearest post and steal power. You connected the positive with the negative and here you were.
There I learned about electricity.
We had nothing but we had everything.
A life of bare necessities but a life plentiful, beauty plentiful, the panorama upon awakening in the early hours of the morning on top of the truck: there were the clouds below and us above in the mountain, as if we were riding in the sky.
Look, the beauty of a landscape, traveling through it.
All my life I've never stayed in one place for more than two months.
The idea of traveling, and here, in the United States, traveling from coast to coast, being everywhere. In the circus in Peru, in the circus everywhere, since the circus began, life a constant state of flux, of going and no coming back, the original voyage: life itself a voyage.
In Peru in the eighties traveling with a circus meant jumping on top of a heap of equipment to find a place to sit and hang on tight. The circus would rent a truck to go from town to town, and it was piled high and haphazard with everything the circus had to carry, people included. Circus tent, poles, chairs and other equipment piled first, each family's belongings second, and on top of all the stuff one had to find a way to lay down a mattress to sleep on, or just a spot to fit in for the ride. Fridman: Nothing spelled out "circus" on those trucks but everybody knew it was a circus truck by the mess of it. On short rides you had to just hop in, or rather up. On longer rides, in bigger circuses, a person in charge of accommodating everything so that everybody could travel more or less safely.
I remember once, a truck started to accelerate madly, it had lost his brakes, and my Dad woke me up and said, "When I say jump, jump." It was dark and you couldn't see where you were, where you were going to jump off into, and the truck was going faster and faster, until there was a hill and it finally stopped of itself. Every trip, there was always something, some accident.
Still, the idea of traveling.
The glut of rules and safety regulations when it came to driving in the United States would astound him for a long time.
But, the similarities: the circus' bad reputation following it like the city's outcasts that caused it in the first place, the runaway hitching a ride for a job and causing trouble, the blame on circus people. To get the city's approval to set the tent, you had to send someone to collect signatures from people in the neighborhoods where it wanted to work and only if a majority of these people signed would the show go on. In the small villages of the Amazon jungle things were loser but harder too for the living conditions, and the lack of roads, often, or a sudden river after torrential rains where before there was nothing and you have to cross it, somehow: And we have to go through this way? This way, yes, there is no other.
And: you'd get as far as where your truck could not go on any more, and that was it.
The idea of traveling.
Traveling since he can remember. I was born in Peru, somewhere in Peru. Traveling since he was born, the story told, as a boy staying in Lima with aunts to go to school but every Friday as soon as school let out heading for the circus, if it was close enough. Going back to the circus and the traveling, never staying put too long, going back to the circus again and again. In the circus I am like a fish in the ocean, the traveling, the idea of traveling.
His parents moving from circus to circus before opening their own but he was gone then. Moving from Circo Condor, my circus, to the Las Aguilas Humanas circus, to the Cavallini circus, the Circo Royal Star, the Magic Show Circus and there memories of his dog, named Muere Muere, or Die Die, because he was stepped on and run over by a car but still managed to survive. Memories of life as a boy like any other, crossing the street by himself for the fist time to go to kindergarten, his mother watching, and of not having enough money to buy lunch when everybody else seemed to. Going back to the circus soon enough, and there was everything you'd need.
We had nothing but we had everything. A small world of families, a web of ties.
In Peru in the eighties there were respected big circuses, the American Circus of Ricardo Flores, a legendary figure of the Peruvian circus, an autodidact who started with his wife's transportation business and created one successful circus after another until he got tired of it and went into politics. There were circus families, like the Zapatines, the Balderramas, the Ramirez, the Estefanos, the Cavallinis, and an intricate web of family ties, and most of the families gone now, or drained away by emigration to the U.S., like most of the Cavallini family, now intricately linked to the Carson and Barnes Circus through marriage and business. There were strong shows like Circo Condor, headed by Guillermo Ramirez, or Las Aguilas Humanas, the circus of the human eagles, headed by one of the Balderramas' sons, or the Circo Royal Star, of the Estefano family, where Fridman found work when he left home, and where he stayed for several years before joining the Cavallini clan again, back in Peru after working in the United States, and later still following them when they went back north.
In this country the same web of family ties, stretched over from coast to coast, into constant crossings.
In Peru, traveling with whatever circus his parents were working with, meeting the same families again and again, the web of family ties, and learning circus arts the wrong way. It's usually your parents who give you the legacy of what they know, unfortunately my father didn't know, so I learned by myself, playing, watching others and trying to do the same, and I learned badly. Twelve when he left home to work on his own, not knowing anything, but knowing how to survive, heading for the circus, not knowing anything else; twelve, thirteen when he learned a trampoline acrobatic act, training together with other youth in Circo Royal Star, where he'd landed. Working any odd job, too, and clowning, because the more clowns in the circus, the better.
For us play was not just cowboy and Indians, it was playing circus. And always the competition, who does the highest somersault, who's the most daring, and the girls watching.
Thirteen, fourteen-year-old boys trying to impress the girls with acrobatics, like teenagers the world over.
Once I did a somersault that I'd never done before just to impress this beautiful girl, and I hit my head so bad I still have the scar.
When the Cavallini family headed north to the U.S. again, Fridman went back to his family, to his parents, now with their own little circus, barely making it. A small tent, a few chairs, someone from town doing the easy tricks, fire eating, laying down on a glass bed, and his father the clown, his mother the show girl, his sister, Sheyla, doing trapeze, and maybe a monkey act, a dog act, there was Circus Dumbar, his parents' livelihood. They would sell whatever equipment was left a few years after Fridman left for the U.S. and settle down in Lima with his help. The ties always.
Coming to the United States the only way up in Latin America for a circus performer, the ultimate goal, the Holy Graal. You'd see those who had gone to the United States come back with their heads held high, I wanted to do the same. I wanted to get ahead, not stay with my arms crossed like my Dad. His ticket north the Cavallini family, trying and failing, finally making it, barely a man, already helping bring his sister the next year, working himself silly, first for very little money, then for more, never much but his way into a better life, a life in the circus always but moving ahead, the way countless immigrants before him have done, until when he finally went back to Peru last year he understood he couldn't live there anymore.
Mud shows, the unforgiving world of the modern American circus, Carson and Barnes with five rings still, then moving up to other circuses, Circus Chimera, Zerbini, and now Kelly Miller, adding a lot more miles to a life of constant moving and a savage, unknown rhythm, the non-stop, seven-days-a-week nine-month season and the infinite work. The joys too, of a new world opening in and out of himself.
Living in another world now.
But: every month, like countless immigrants the country over, sending money to the home that is not anymore, his family depending on him entirely now. A web of family ties, of family duties, ties embroidering the now distant voyage.
Some time along that journey Fridman and I met and created yet another strand, another family stretching into yet another world. Meeting in a small town like the hundreds the mud shows like Kelly Miller Circus and Carson and Barnes Circus play each year, in Jacksonville, Illinois, a Sunday in September of two thousand. Opening a new century with the promise of a new life, not yet envisioned.
Small town newspaper, small town circus, a worn story. We made an odd pair and our worlds clashed - we are together still, the children widening our journey, the journey's end into a new beginning.
But not the end yet, only the fear of growing old in the circus. The sadness of the circus, living to be old. I have seen many men who one day were loved and respected performers, young, die in Peru in the most abject poverty, reduced to nothing. What's it worth? What is it worth to have been famous if you end up dying like this? Just a terrible sadness. Nothing left, nothing at all, but the bitter ashes of a life of youth.
The sadness of the circus.
The most beautiful memory: crouching in the dark after the circus moved into town and everything was discharged from the trucks, all the work done, and all the men gathered, maybe lit a lamp or a small fire, and talked for hours. They always say women are chatty but in truth in the circus the men are the most gossipy of all. The boy Fridman, sitting just beyond that circle of talk, in the darkness, in the intimacy of the night, a ring of light illuminating his circus world, enfolding it, letting him imagine the possibilities of that journey, just begun - I can only guess, the small boy far out of my own story still.
How I loved listening to those stories, all the stories, made up or real what does it matter, stories, under the light of the moon, the men talking until late and I praying that it would never end, that it would go on and on and on so.

A trailer with a view.

2011-10-14T13:27:00.003-04:00

October 14, Camdenton, Missouri (75 miles, amphitheater grounds.)

Corner.

2011-10-14T13:27:00.001-04:00

October 13, Ashland.

House of dreams revisited.

2011-10-14T13:25:00.005-04:00

October 13, Ashland.

Sally in the kitchen.

2011-10-14T13:25:00.002-04:00

October 13, Ashland.

The letter o.

2011-10-14T13:21:00.005-04:00

October 13, Ashland.

"My favorite letter in the world. The letter o."
Sally Foster, artist, dancer, actress, humanist, friend extraordinaire, playing floor alphabet with Dylan and Nicolas.
What I love about the letter o, the cursive o with its round curve jippity-jumping out and you want to take its hand and go waltzing around.
We spent the day visiting with Sally, it was a children's brimming day, full of Ohs and Aahs, a day brimming with joy (the letter o in the center of joy) and waltzes.

House of dreams.

2011-10-14T13:21:00.002-04:00

October 13, Ashland.

"We hope to move ourselves in entirely some day.
Preferably before we die."
Greg Foster, philosopher, linguist, humanist, savant, friend extraordinaire.

A trailer with a view.

2011-10-14T13:17:00.001-04:00

October 13, Ashland, Missouri (75 miles, Optimist Complex.)

A trailer with a view.

2011-10-12T12:52:00.001-04:00

October 12, Montgomery City, Missouri (58 miles, fairgrounds.)

A trailer with a view.

2011-10-11T13:26:00.001-04:00

October 11, Winfield, Missouri (32 miles, sports field.)

Missouri drive.

2011-10-10T13:52:00.001-04:00

October 9, Warrenton.

Glorious, glorious, morning drive on country roads, and the rising sun, magic hour of the morning, glorious, the painted forest, and sweet hills, curves, like a woman's body, a long morning drive, grateful.
A seventy-plus mile drive through the hills of central Missouri to bypass a broken bridge and a meandering path in banal magnificence.

A trailer with a view.

2011-10-10T13:51:00.001-04:00

October 9, Warrenton, Missouri (74 miles, athletic complex.)

A trailer with a view.

2011-10-09T14:05:00.001-04:00

October 9, Union, Missouri (77 miles, Jaycee fairgrounds.)

My winners.

2011-10-09T13:43:00.002-04:00

October 8, Troy.

In the spirit of the wonderfully fun, fair, all-inclusive and family-friendly Kelly Miller Circus Fourth of July contest, here are my kid costume winners for this year's Halloween extravaganza:
Best sleeping beauty: Gigi (fell asleep before the party started)
Best not-quite-evil doll: Gordo
Best blue baby: Nicolas Fusco
Best Future Amish of America: Argio
Best adorable small creature: Mariana
Best Mummy-to-be: Nathan
Best pop icon potential: Flaco
Best super heroes: Dylan and Nicolas.
And hats off to all.

The party (Tiny and Armando.)

2011-10-08T20:57:00.002-04:00

October 8, Troy.

Great party, as Kelly Miller is known for throwing each year, even though it was marred by my Dylan's tears, again.

I am your father.

2011-10-08T13:15:00.000-04:00

October 7, Troy.

Halloween.

2011-10-08T13:14:00.001-04:00

October 7, Troy.

Men of my heart.

2011-10-08T13:12:00.002-04:00

October 7, Troy.

Last time I have to watch my son cry for no reason.
Last Kelly Miller Circus Halloween party for my sons.

A trailer with a view.

2011-10-07T17:07:00.001-04:00

October 7, Troy, Illinois (21 miles, next to RP Lumber.)

An uncommon story (part II.)

2011-10-06T22:14:00.006-04:00

October 6, Livingston.

All my life I've never stayed in one place for more than two months. Traveling, the idea of traveling, and here, in the United States, traveling from coast to coast, being everywhere.
In the circus in Peru, in the circus the world over since the circus began, life has been a voyage.
In Peru in the eighties traveling with a circus meant jumping on top of a heap of equipment to find a place to sit, and hang on tight. The circus would rent a truck to go from town to town and it was piled high and haphazard with everything that had to be carried, people included. Circus tent, poles, chairs and other equipment piled first, each family's belongings second, and on top of all the stuff one had to find a way to lay down a mattress to sleep on, or just a spot to fit in for the ride.
Fridman: Nothing spelled out "circus" on those trucks but everybody knew it was a circus truck by the mess of it. On short rides you had to just hop in, or rather up. On longer rides in bigger circuses there was someone in charge of accommodating everything and everybody.
I remember once, a truck started to accelerate madly, it had lost his brakes, and my Dad woke me up and told me, "When I say jump, jump." It was dark and you couldn't see where you were, where you were going to jump off into, and the truck was going faster and faster, until there was a hill and it finally stopped of itself. Every trip, there was always something, some accident.
Still, the idea of traveling.
The glut of rules and safety regulations when it came to driving in the United States would astound him for a long time.
But, the similarities: the circus' bad reputation following it like the city's outcasts that caused it in the first place, the runaway hitching a ride for a job and causing trouble, the blame on circus people. To get the city's approval to set the tent, the circus had to send someone to collect signatures from people in the neighborhoods where it wanted to work and only if a majority of these people signed would the show go on. In the small villages of the Amazon jungle things were loser but harder too for the living conditions, and the lack of roads, often, or a sudden river after torrential rains where before there was nothing and you have to cross it, somehow: And we have to go through this way? This way, yes, there is no other.
And: you'd get as far as where your truck could not go on any more, and that was it.
Traveling, the idea of traveling.
Traveling since he can remember. I was born in Peru, somewhere in Peru. Traveling since he was born, the story told, as a boy staying in Lima with aunts to go to school but every Friday as soon as school let out heading for the circus, if it was close enough. Going back to the circus and the traveling, never staying put too long, going back to the circus again and again. In the circus I am like a fish in the ocean.
His parents moving from circus to circus before opening their own, but he was already gone then. Moving from Circo Condor, my circus, to the Las Aguilas Humanas circus, to the Cavallini circus, the Circo Royal Star, the Magic Show Circus and there memories of his dog, named Muere Muere, or Die Die, because he was stepped on and run over by a car but still managed to survive. Memories of life as a boy like any other, crossing the street by himself for the fist time to go to kindergarten, his mother watching, and of not having enough money to buy lunch when everybody else seemed to. Going back to the circus soon enough, and there was everything you'd need.
We had nothing but we had everything. A small world of families, a web of ties.
In Peru in the eighties there were respected big circuses, the American Circus of Ricardo Flores, a legendary figure of the Peruvian circus, an autodidact who started with his wife's transportation business and created one successful circus after another until he got tired of it and went into politics. There were circus families, like the Zapatines, the Balderramas, the Ramirez, the Estefanos, the Cavallinis, and an intricate web of family ties, and most of the families gone now, or drained away by emigration to the U.S., like most of the Cavallini family, now intricately linked to the Carson and Barnes Circus through marriage and business. There were strong shows like Circo Condor, headed by Guillermo Ramirez, or Las Aguilas Humanas, the circus of the human eagles, headed by one of the Balderramas' sons, or the Circo Royal Star, of the Estefano family, where Fridman found work when he left home, and where he stayed for several years before joining the Cavallini clan again, back in Peru after working in the United States, and later still following them when they went back north.
In this country the same web of family ties, stretched over from coast to coast, into constant crossings.
Into another world.

With his sister, Sheyla, and Muere Muere.

Family portraits.

2011-10-06T13:36:00.001-04:00

October 6, Livingston.

A trailer with a view.

2011-10-06T10:53:00.003-04:00

October 6, Livingston, Illinois (50 miles, Memorial park.)

Bed time around here.

2011-10-05T19:22:00.001-04:00

October 5, Greenfield.

Quiet memories.

2011-10-05T18:05:00.001-04:00

October 5, Greenfield.

Years ago when I worked in Jacksonville I came to this park to take pictures of a bluegrass concert. It was one of these slow Sunday afternoons of late summer, much like the one when I met Fridman. The music was good, it was one of these easy jobs.
I never thought of it again until we drove in this morning. The memories became finer as I walked out to the pond and saw the trees. Sitting on the grass at the foot of the tall tree there was the sound of the wind in the trees, the leaves falling, and then it died out and there was nothing but my quiet memories and my very loud skin, the roaring of blood in my head, the tinnitus I've had since adolescence and a terrifyingly loud punk-rock concert.
In a cruel irony of nature I am deaf yet full of bottomless noise.
(The circus is full of noise, too, the generator, the music, the crowds, the incessant noise of our lives, but it didn't reach my tree.)

A trailer with a view.

2011-10-05T15:14:00.002-04:00

October 5, Greenfield, Illinois (71 miles, Rives Lake.)

Zuzana's room.

2011-10-05T15:07:00.001-04:00

October 4, Sherman.

I went to visit my friend Zuzana.
She found a job and bought a house, a beautiful Arts and Crafts house with a big tree in the front yard, she lives there with her son, she chose the small bedroom with the soft violet paint, she left her husband. Good things in her life, the last time I went through Jacksonville, in the spring, just a few months back, she was jobless and torn.

The crowd this morning.

2011-10-04T11:15:00.003-04:00

October 4, Sherman.

On his way to school this morning Johnny glanced over at the crowd that had gathered to watch the big top go up.

A trailer with a view.

2011-10-04T11:14:00.000-04:00

October 4, Sherman, Illinois (53 miles, Athletic Show grounds.)

Buckner.

2011-10-04T11:09:00.002-04:00

October 3, Havana.

A trailer with a view.

2011-10-03T13:47:00.001-04:00

October 3, Havana, Illinois (67 miles, business park.)

At the Fuscos.

2011-10-03T13:46:00.000-04:00

October 2, Carthage.

A trailer with a view.

2011-10-02T12:08:00.000-04:00

October 2, Carthage, Illinois (112 miles, Saddle Club grounds.)

Play (eleven PM.)

2011-10-01T20:58:00.002-04:00

October 1, Kewanee.

Dylan invited Nicolas over to his bed to play when I told him that there was going to be light all night and he could turn on his star.

A trailer with a view.

2011-10-01T20:49:00.002-04:00

October 1, Kewanee, Illinois (58 miles, corner of 3rd and Elm Streets.)

An uncommon story (part I.)

2011-09-30T16:09:00.004-04:00

September 30, Granville.

There was once a boy who loved to ride on top of rickety trucks loaded with a circus tent and his family's belongings. They would travel all over his country, Peru, in South America, to villages in the Amazonian jungle and in the Sierra mountains, to the ocean, to the cities, and pitch the tent for a few days or weeks. He would go to school in the morning and work in the show in the evening. He loved to hide in the darkness beyond the campfire light and listen to the men gossip and talk until the wee hours of the night. He loved to travel and get to be the new kid in town. Then there came a time when he yearned for bigger skies, and he came to the United States. There he worked harder than he ever thought was possible, saved enough to buy a home, and made his way into a new family.
His is a typical American immigrant story. Only he wears makeup and a costume for a living and works thirty-five feet up in the air.
His name is Fridman Torales Rios. He is a circus performer.
Fridman is thirty-three years old, born and raised in what is one of the poorest social group among one of the poorest countries in the world. That he says: In Peru the circus is about the lowest you can get.
And:
I thought everybody's life was like ours: I never thought for a moment that we were exceptional for being in the circus.
A life of hardships, an exceptional life.
But then again, this he says: I had nothing, but I had everything.
There always was food on the table, there always was work, there always was travel, friends, and the circus. A childhood memory, maybe the only one of want: when he was a boy Fridman longed for a bicycle. Not many toys, no toys for Christmas, but a new pair of pants, some new clothes to last you the year. His mother couldn't afford to buy him a bicycle, his father he didn't bother to ask. The circus owner's son had a brand new bicycle, and he so longed for it, and he still remembered that longing years later when he bought a bicycle for his own son.
He made his own toys.
We had nothing but we had everything.
In Peru in the eighties circus life was a camping tent for a home, his family ten feet by ten feet long, richer families as much as twenty feet long, most often home-made, and in the tent one arranged partitions if it was big enough, but the floor was always dirt, and cooking was done on a wood stove, inside a separate tent. There was competition as to who would have the nicest tent, with the nicest decorations, the most windows. Living on his own Fridman soon became well-known for crafting custom tents, and sold them to fellow circus people.
Or simply life was a mattress under the bleachers, under the circus tent, for the city workers, or the odd youth, like Fridman after he left his parents at the age of twelve to go find work on his own.
Like a soldier you carried your mattress on your back, and when the night came you laid out your mattress under the bleachers and there you slept.
That, and you carried your water.
You had to suffer to get water, to bathe, to cook, to do everything, you couldn't waste it. Reminiscing.
Water has always been for me the most precious thing there is, water is sacred.
You had to fetch your daily water at a water truck, or at the river. At the bigger circuses the city would provide a water hose, but in all the others, smaller circuses, one had to carry his own water, bartering a gallon of water for a free entrance to the show at the nearest home, or just buying it. In the Amazon things could be easier, there was often a river where one could wash clothes and bathe. To get power the bigger circuses had generators, like American circuses, and circuses like his father's would get the city's electric company to come and connect them, or would simply send someone to climb the nearest post and steal power. You connected the positive with the negative and here you were.
There I learned about electricity.
We had nothing but we had everything.
(To be continued.)

A trailer with a view.

2011-09-30T11:11:00.001-04:00

September 30, Granville, Illinois (38 miles, high school grounds.)