When life starts to feel like a circus, sometimes it feels good to go to one. Acrobats and jugglers, contortionists and shapeshifters — all bending over backwards for your entertainment.
A strange relief comes with sitting in the dark — watching performers defy the pull of the earth, simply for the sake of spectacle. And in that, there is comfort in illusion — the weight of life becomes light as air itself.
When I discovered Cirque Du Soleil was in town — the circus of the sun, as the French call it — I chased its light and bought myself a ticket to the show.
Dusk fell, and Le Cirque began to glow, its canopy draped in gold. I approached the venue and stepped inside a tent of marvels and mystique. The curtain at the entrance unveiled a portal to another dimension, where reality tilted into something as dazzling as it was distorted.
Before the show began, I let my senses lead me. Popcorn hissed and rumbled behind the glass, luring me in with a sweetness edged in salt. I wandered to the bar and abandoned my usual café crème for cabernet, craving not caffeine, but surrender — courage poured in red to brave the circus.
Suddenly, the bulbs above me flickered, ushering us to the theater. Showtime.
I sank into my seat, into the spectacle before me. The tent began to darken, my wine bearing witness to the mastery at work: shadows bent into shape, colors collided and warped, and bodies hung suspended in defiance of physics. Fire licked against silk, water broke upon flesh, and fantasy spun itself into motion.
Amid the whirl of limbs, one performer caught my gaze and held it captive: the man on the tightrope — his body coated in red, blond hair peeking through the paint. He walked the line — each step deliberate, steady, as if walking itself were an art form.
Down on earth, I admired the man gliding above me. His commitment to his craft hypnotized me — it wasn’t just his skill I respected, but the sincerity in his steps. As he crossed the rope strung across the sky, the act no longer felt staged. It became something higher: passion and precision born beneath the spotlight.
The man continued his path on the tightrope, captivating the audience with each stride forward. Then, for just a moment, flames from center stage cut through the darkness around him. The light flashed. And there it was — the thinnest of strings, nearly invisible, almost ghostlike, tethering him to the ceiling.
The very thing that raised him up was never meant to be seen. I was never supposed to discover his secret thread hiding in the dark, held by other hands, but I did — and maybe that’s the truth about the circuses we live through: those who we admire for their integrity often have strings attached elsewhere.
The light exposed the cheater.
Perhaps deceit is a performance in itself — balance and poise, smoke and spectacle. The cheater doesn’t announce himself — he dazzles, he distracts. He convinces you the rope is steady, the act sincere. They play truth the way acrobats play gravity — with just enough mastery that you forget to question what’s holding them up.
But once we see past the facade, we are given a choice, as was I — as the man on the other side of the string. We can gasp at the illusion in dismay, or we can savor it for what it is. There’s a certain pleasure in deceit when you’re in on the secret. The performer thinks the trick still holds — each step they take meant to mesmerize. Yet we no longer fall for the act.
To his audience, to me, he glided like a god, unbound and eternal — when in reality he was only ever a boy in costume. He was extraordinary because I believed he was. And yet, as I sat back and sipped my wine, I realized — the performer is suspended in the air, clinging to balance, while I’m on solid ground, entertained.
Finally, the performance ended. The houselights rose as I swallowed the last of my wine. I stepped out of the tent and left the circus behind — not just the velvet canopy, but its illusions, too. I was amused — it was a show after all. I could even applaud the effort. But illusion, for all its shimmer, was never built to last.
And still, despite the lie of it all, it made me smile. The circus was outrageous and beautiful, thrilling and alive — and for a while, I loved being there. The joy of it was real.
And the tent behind me dissolved into the night.
C’est la vie.
