Kinky

A while ago, we brought our crew to see Cirque de Soleil. It is a creative, dramatic blend of circus tricks and performances, sprinkled with inventive music and fantastical story lines.  Oh…and no animals!  The beauty is in the ability of people to become entertaining creatures.  Though we got a few tickets for free, it still took quite a bit of spare change to get into the blue and yellow tent.  But we have gone every year.  We always walk away in wonder.  And traditions can be priceless.

So there we sat, amidst the mesmerized crowd…in awe of the feats of human anatomy.  This year, the central theme was bugs…cheery, colorful, long legs abound.  There wasn’t a moment we weren’t entranced.

And then came the shiny, armored beetles.  (Ok…really they were chiseled, aerial acrobats.) The trapezing arthropods scampered up the rope ladders to their swings in waiting.  Then, they would leap and tumble in the air…catching each other and collecting oohs and ahhs.

Then, one particularly stealth beetle fell in his attempted flipping feat.  We fell silent.  An empathetic gasp resonated.  But no Raid was needed.  He was caught in the safety net below and immediately began his leggy crawl back to the roach that kicked him off.

Something in the crowd softened. I was not alone in my adoration of this less-than-perfect beetle.  The fallen one became my favorite. And by the sighs and sounds of the audience…we all felt the same.

He showed a kink in his armor.  He had shared that even in this world of costumes and creatures, an armored beetle can tumble.  What’s more…he became perfectly human in a creepy, crawling kind of way.  And there we all sat…captivated by his humanity.  He became our beloved beetle.

And so it is…the ones that fall, that get scrambled in nets, that reveal their imperfections…they become the ones we hope for.  Because in them, we see ourselves and our mishaps.  The times we have tried and fallen face first in the bug-filled dirt.  We have looked beetles in the eye, as we lay there…in our kinked and dinged exoskeleton.

And of course, our beetle tried again…circulating through the air and then grasping his swing with a beautiful combination of strength and ease.  And we all loved him the more.

When the show ended, the bugs leaped, crawled and bumbled back to center stage. Our beetle was crouched among ladybugs and fireflies.  And we all cheered when he took his bow.  (I know…beetles don’t really bow!) He had the courage to fall. To try. To show us that the dings we endure keep us connected…no matter how many legs we have.