I think it was three weeks ago now that Elizabeth learned to juggle.  We were at Monroe park on a brilliantly sunny evening.  She got the basic moves right away, and then it was just a matter of refining them, by tossing again and again.

So I had started juggling too.  That's when the young family came by.  It happens all the time.  I think the motion catches the eye, and then the color and patterns draw them in.  There was a young couple and a little boy, a toddler no more than three. He was captivated.  But he was wearing the strangest blank expression.  Usually, little ones start to giggle the moment they see juggling.  They seem to have no inhibitions about it; juggling is just fun to see.

But this little one had no expression, as if he were in a trance.  Elizabeth and I were tossing the balls and smiling at him.  His parents urged him on, and they started to walk away.  Then the little boy turned and toddled back a couple of steps.  And then he looked right at us and laughed out loud, just the most gleeful little-boy laugh I've ever heard.  Elizabeth and I were laughing along with him until finally his parents, who were also infected with his mirth, took his little hand and led him away.

Later Eliabeth's boyfriend came by and watched us for a few minutes.  He is now a juggler too, just from that few minutes of exposure.  That's why I love juggling; it draws people together, breaks the ice.  And it creates something beautiful.