Leave the circus to the professionals

If you think your life is a circus, check this one out.In an age of non-stop responsibilities and overloaded agendas, it's hard to find a little down time. When I found mine, it was at the circus.As I unwound amidst a sea of spectators at Arco Arena earlier this week, entranced by the smell of the greasepaint and the roar of the crowd, I settled in for the "greatest show on earth," with the hopes of learning a trick or two on how to handle my three-ring lifestyle.n The Shenzen Troupe of hat jugglers, for instance, could teach me how to better manipulate my overlapping obligations. If I was half as good as them, with my day set in motion and everything up in the air, I would rest assured that all the mistakes would be caught and everything would fall into place at the end.n To have the strongman Herkules around the house to open that stubborn pickle jar may be a luxury most of us cannot afford. But the sight of him pulling that 6,000-pound elephant on a trailer across the big top floor was proof that even the toughest burdens we may encounter are not impossible.n Madame Shamsheeva, with her menagerie of performing pets, is welcome in my house any day. If she can't get my cat to use its litter box then no one can. And while she's at it, maybe she can teach it to fill it's own food dish and let itself out in the morning.n The circus clowns force us to think differently about those around us. After all, we often feel surrounded by clowns on a daily basis, but do our co-workers really drive around in tiny cars, throw pies in each other's faces and generally cause mayhem wherever they set foot? OK, maybe I should reconsider that last statement, but chances are at your place of employment this does not occur frequently.n The Yunnan High Flyers give new meaning to the term "don't leave me hanging." If everyone acted with the same amount of teamwork and cooperation as these guys, the only ones left jumping through hoops in this world would be Madame Shamsheeva's dogs. n After witnessing the Torres Family and their motorcycle mania, buzzing around like bees in that industrial-strength thunderdome, I'll never complain about traffic on Interstate 80 again. I saw Cossacks on horseback and elephants doing step aerobics. Acrobats and gymnasts doing things I repeatedly told my son not to try at home.All in all, it was a wonderful night of spectacle and surprise, where man and beast shared the spotlight and everyone left the arena smiling. It was Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey at their finest.As ringmaster Chuck Wagner told me, "Traveling on a mile-long circus train from town to town can have positive side effects on a person. I plan to come out of the circus feeling younger than when I went in."So maybe life is meant to be a circus; we just need to be young to enjoy it. Editor's note - no animals were harmed during the writing of this article. Paul Cambra is a reporter for The Press-Tribune. He can be reached at paulc@goldcountrymedia.com.