I Can Fly
Looking down made me feel like a princess up in a tower. I reached out, wrapped my fingers tightly around the trapeze, and waited for my coach’s signal. I pulled the bar up, swung out twenty-five feet in the air, threw my body into a laid-out somersault. I looked up for my catcher’s hands, knowing they would be there. My trust in him was undeniable. The vast 1500-seat arena was standing room only. It was filled from one end to the other, and all their eyes were on me. As we connected, I felt relief and excitement all at once. The audience stood and erupted in applause! It felt as though the top of the arena would fly off. I am sure I’ll never have a feeling like that again.
Let’s rewind.
I am six years old. My mama took me to see my older cousin, Dottie, in the circus. Walking into the smell of sawdust and popcorn, seeing all the kids in their sparkly costumes, children laughing at the clowns, hearing the band playing Hey, Look Me Over, and then the ringmaster ringing out “Ladies and gentlemen. Children of all ages.” It felt like being in a kingdom of kings, queens, knights, and jesters. I knew we had a circus in our town, but this was my first time seeing it. After the show, mama asked me if I wanted to be IN the circus, I jumped up and shouted YES! Dottie said her dad could make a trapeze for me to help me get ready to try out the following summer.
We hung my trapeze on a large branch on a tree in front of our house. My mama put an old mattress underneath. I got a small stepladder out of the garage that I used for a pedestal. I spent all the time I could there, especially when I didn’t want to go inside. Often it would be pitch dark before I went in. My trapeze became my best friend.
The next time I walked into the circus arena, it felt gigantic to me. That first practice is where I met Betty. She coached Swinging Ladders, an act I performed in my first year in the show. The ladders swung ten feet in the air while the performers did tricks on the rungs, including hanging upside down by one foot in a loop. I avoided doing that trick. Just a week before final cuts, Betty came to me. “If you can’t do the foot loop trick, you won’t make it,” she said. “You are small for this act. So, you must overcome this fear to be in the circus. You will be so proud of yourself if you do. I won’t let you fall, and I’ll be proud of you, too.”
Betty and her husband were professional circus performers. They started out as bareback horse riders doing somersaults on horseback. As the years went on their family grew into tightrope walkers and aerialists. Betty and her husband were in the circus until they retired, after 27 years of performing. It was then that they moved to our small midwestern town and began training kids at our amateur circus. Betty had pure white hair and a contagious smile. She was gentle and patient with us.
The next day at practice I asked to be first to go up on the ladders. My memory of this is clear – my seven-year-old self wanted to conquer that trick. It was that last sentence Betty said, “I’ll be proud of you, too,” that I remembered. And I did the trick and made the act and was officially in the circus! Betty said it – she was so proud of me.
The following year, I started trapeze skills and met Millie. She was the wife of Willie, the great “Human Cannonball.” He built a cannon and thrilled crowds worldwide with his 60-foot flights. Millie would pull the cannon’s trigger, sending him arcing from the smoking cannon’s mouth into a safety net two hundred feet away. His greatest flight was over a giant Ferris wheel at the New York World’s Fair. When he retired, he began training at our circus along with Millie. I adored that fiery little man with the German accent. Millie told me the first day we met that my skills were “fantabulous,” a word she used often. I told her it was because of my trapeze at home. She said “fantabulous” again.
And so, it began…ten years of devoting every summer to the amateur circus. There are only fifty circuses like it in the country. And I got to do what most kids can only imagine. The circus showcased 200+ kids every year. Over its 65-year history, thousands have watched in awe as the youth performed like professionals. I got to be one of them. It took hundreds of volunteers putting in endless hours to make the circus happen. What I never imagined was the impact it would have on me as I grew up and into adulthood.
The summer I turned eleven, I rode my bike twelve blocks from our house to the circus arena. I became increasingly fearless and independent. I tried everything the circus offered. I was now old enough to sense problems and turmoil at home, so I spent long hours at the circus and avoided leaving.
I got to be in Balancing Bike that year. It’s when girls are jumping on the bike and doing tricks, while the driver circles the ring. I did a trick where a girl was sitting on the driver’s shoulders. I climbed on and up and stood on her shoulders. It was scary and fun. I did Swinging Ladders again too, only this time the ladders were twice as big and twice as high as the ones from my first year in the circus. Finally, my big accomplishment that year was being in Low Casting Trapeze. It came naturally to me. I felt like I was swinging on my trapeze at home on the tree. It was a lower version of the higher act I had my eye on.
The next year I took that big step. Finally, I turned thirteen and was old enough to do it: I tried out for Flying Trapeze. Swinging twenty-five feet in the air, I didn’t look down at first. But once I did, I loved it. We worked hard every night for three hours, learning tricks from the trapeze to the catcher, returning to the bar, and then mounting the tower pedestal. We practiced falling to the net below. Our coach was a flying catcher when he was young and was strict. Before the final four performers were chosen, we each had to do two tricks without the belt, catch, and return to the bar and tower. I did it, and I made it! I became a member of the Flying Freebirds Flying Trapeze act – the act that closed every show and was the dream and envy of every young child in the circus.
You could insert the first paragraph of this story here, about when I got to fly in front of an audience for the first time.
The following summer I could have had a tragic end. Since having been diagnosed with Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis in 2016, my neurologist and I have discussed the possibility that this incident forty years earlier may have contributed to it. I had fallen before, but never anything quite like this.
I started learning a trick called “passing leap.” I swung out on the trapeze, and the catcher caught my legs. Another flyer then swung out and did a somersault over the top of me as the catcher turned me back to the trapeze bar. But this time something went wrong, and we collided. I was hurtling uncontrollably down toward the ground, sure to miss the net, and, by the grace of God, there was a girl spotting around the rig. She saw me falling, ran toward me, and, reaching out, she caught me under the armpits. The heels of both of my feet slammed down on the concrete, and my spotter fell backwards losing her grip on me. Like a rag doll, I flopped down next to her on my right side, jarring my pelvis and lower back.
Although it’s impossible to determine the exact cause of my Multiple Sclerosis, suffering blunt force trauma injuries to the head or spine when you’re young can lead to its progressive development. That’s something we’ll never know for certain. I do still credit that spotter, who was the same age and size as me, for saving my life. Lights out for me if my head had hit that concrete.
That accident happened the summer I turned fourteen. Tough, resilient, and determined to fly again, I headed back up the ladder to the tower pedestal three weeks later. It ended up being one of the most memorable years in my life. That year my idol and mentor – a girl named Bo – attempted to do a double somersault with a full twist. It had never been done at our circus. All summer through all our practices, she didn’t catch the trick, but our coach knew she could, and he let her do it during the performances. She attempted the trick every show for all ten shows, with three chances each show. It was so nerve-wracking for all of us each time they missed. On her third and absolute last attempt at the final show, she and the catcher made history as he grabbed her fingertips and pulled her up for the catch. And when she returned to the tower pedestal, she was trembling, and we all hugged and jumped up and down shaking the whole rig before dropping to the net one by one to thundering cheers.
The circus was demanding work that helped me gain strength, confidence, and self-worth when I desperately needed it at a pivotal time in my life. Having the circus and my circus family was the one constant in those ten critical years. During that time, my parents divorced, and we moved, leaving my trapeze on the tree behind. I changed schools in sixth grade and had to make new friends. My mom had to work full-time then, leaving me home alone often.
Over the next year my dad sunk deeper into alcoholism, leading to multiple arrests for driving under the influence, and he went to prison. Then that summer, for the first time, I lost someone close to me. My Papa died, and my dad didn’t even get to go to his own dad’s funeral. I know in my heart that I would have taken a completely different route and gone down a much darker path without the Peru Amateur Circus. The coaches there cheered me on and hugged me tight when I accomplished a trick. They were also there to listen and hug me a little tighter when something happened at home that brought me down.
People I meet outside of Peru look at me in disbelief when I tell them this story. One young man, a friend of my granddaughter, asked, “Is that why you’re crippled now?” When a former work colleague I met at a conference heard I had been a highflyer, he told another worker, “She’s delusional. She’s got to be making it up.” And when my husband was in the Army stationed in Texas and I lived there, no one believed me until I showed them pictures. I only have four grainy ones. Mama didn’t have a good camera or sometimes didn’t have one at all. I keep close tabs on those four pictures. I have a friend who is an artist. She took the pictures and made them into lifelike paintings. Because there are only four, my children continually argue over who will get which one after I’m gone.
The circus is a whole book of good memories for me. And not just memories, but also life lessons. I dream about it in my sleep sometimes. Now being unable to walk without a cane, being able to look back at accomplishing that feat is priceless. It takes me back to that very first year when I was afraid to do the foot loop trick. Because of the circus, the fear of having this chronic disease was something I knew I could handle. And I’m doing just that.
The circus made me who I am today. I have traits that have been critical in accepting upheaval in my life caused by my MS. For months after my diagnosis, I slipped into and wallowed in severe depression. It was the lowest I’d ever been or ever would be. I was grieving who I was before. But when I began writing about my disease, my feelings, and my past accomplishments like flying high, I stopped grieving what I could no longer do. Instead, I remember and cherish everything I have already done. And although I still love looking back, I can move forward with plans for what I am going to do to battle this disease.
As a teenager, I felt my future begin when I climbed that rope ladder to the tower pedestal high up in the center of the circus arena. I was ready to fly, as high as I could go, in more ways than one. And it’s still up to me how high I can go. I believe I’m still heading to the top by writing about this remarkable experience that most kids can only dream of – being able to fly.
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About the Author
Debra Jo Myers was first published in first grade in both Children’s Digest and Highlights magazines, after her teacher sent in her short story, “What’s Above the Clouds?” She is thrilled that her goal to become an author she set for herself 50 years ago is underway. Debra is a “Nana” to ten, acts and directs in community theater, was an on-air local radio personality, and a highflyer in the amateur circus in her hometown. She loves to read, and James Patterson is her favorite author. In 2016 she was diagnosed with Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis. She slipped into depression, but writing became her salvation. Debra has written three novels about families from different sides of the track woven together through the marriage of their two youngest children titled The V Trilogy. She’s had articles published online and in print, as well as on the blog of best-selling author, Liz Flaherty. She is now working on a book of short personal stories titled Cake Crumbs.