Little Boy Drop In

Juggling in the park today, I sense someone standing behind me. And when I turn there is a little boy. I say hello, and he watches for awhile, with the usual spell-bound expression. He's very small, maybe three, and suddenly I realize there is no parent in sight.

"Where are your parents?" I wonder out loud. He says they are lost.

Uh oh.

Let's go play, he says.  Let's go find your parents.  In answer to my repeated inquiries about parents, Rudy waves his arms vaguely. He isn't sure where he saw them last. But he wants to show me a tree house. A young woman comes by and I tell her "this is Rudy and his parents are lost."

"I'm his mother'" she says. Oh good.  And I figure that's it.  But Rudy isn't done.  He tells his mom all about the juggling, and that she has to come see. So off we go, to the shelter of my shade tree, where I juggle for Rudy and Emily, his mom. Rudy's a nice little boy, but I do have to tell him once that he can't hit my pinky ball with a juggling club, using it like a bat.

Now Rudy wants me to come juggle for his baby sister, over in the busy part of the park. I decline, politely. I'm not up for an audience today.  Multiple health problems have me reeling, and it was a personal victory just to get out of the house today.

Rudy isn't taking no for an answer, and soon I'm packing up my stuff and hiking off to meet Baby sister Eliza, and Rudy's dad, Roger. They are a nice family. We chat and I juggle. Baby sister is not interested. "My dad can juggle," Rudy blurts, and dad looks chagrined.  But dad has a nice, solid shower pattern. He tells me his fourth grade teacher taught him.  And in his thirties, he still knows. Because it's the body that learns to juggle, not the brain. And the body can't forget.

Dad mentions he's always wanted to learn how to pass.  Well now's your chance, I say, and soon we are getting some good solid passes between us. Then it's time to go. They are on the road to Portland. Now a woman has come up behind me. She's thanking me for juggling, and she wants a picture of my home made clubs.  She says her grandfather was a juggler, and I've reminded her of him. She says she has his clubs at home, in the attic.  They are hand carved. I bet they are perfectly balanced, and probably worth a fortune..

And so from Rudy, to Rudy's family, to a woman who remembers her grandfather, the magic of juggling has taken me some distance away from the nagging fear about my many health problems. It always happens that way. Spectators see that I have given them something beautiful, something poetic and created. But they never seem to realize the greatness of what they give to me.