By Monday, I expect to be desperately shoving clothes into two suitcases before rushing to the airport for my flight to Melbourne.
Yes, I’m giving up everything up for you, my Australian contemporary circus performer.
I’ll admit that when you walked onstage last night, I thought you looked a bit like a buff Doogie Howser – something we can laugh about in 10 years, I’m sure.
You strutted around shirtless, in comfort-fit jeans, barefoot, with a delightfully ripped body, on a non-threatening, 5’5″ frame. Blond hair, innocent smile.
I didn’t want to fall in love with you. In fact, I actively worked to avoid it.
About 20 minutes into the show, when you put on that leather, button-down vest, I wondered if you were gay. I convinced myself that you were. It would be easier for me that way.
I decided years ago that I was done with performers. Vibrant, fun and exciting, yes. Fulfilling to be with, not really.
Being attracted to you would be a huge step back for me, emotionally. Or so I thought.
During the show – an 80 minute trust exercise with seven other performers – I saw how you threw and caught the female performers. I saw how you’d subtly check when they were ready. How you’d brace them for a half second and smile after they nailed a tough move.
Those tiny moments were the end for me.
You could have focused on yourself, completed the move and aligned yourself for what YOU had to do next. But no, you took joy in supporting them. When they jumped, they knew you would catch them.
By about 40 minutes in, I realized there has never been anyone in my life that I have trusted so completely as they trust you.
All the impressive titles, pressed shirts and embossed business cards in the world are meaningless now.
You, my hopefully-not-gay Australian circus performer who is shorter than me, you are the person I’m supposed to be with.
I will jump, and you will catch me.
I’ve already made peace with the fact that my cats will need to be quarantined for a few weeks when we land. And not having anywhere to stay, I can imagine I’ll need to move in with your mother.
It will be a lonely summer (or winter, since I’ll be in Australia), as I wait for you to come home from the tour. Because inevitably, you will keep touring, to faraway places like Edinburgh Fringe, and be met with wild acclaim.
I can only imagine what sleeping with a contemporary circus performer would be like.
On stage, you were strong and solid, but also flipped and twirled through the air with a level of grace and flexibility I’ve only observed in high level yogis.
Except to me, yogis embody the sexual potency of a piece of seaweed.
But Doogie, looking at you had me aching to take a deep drag of a cigarette.
You spent most of the show with your shirt off, reminding me that male beauty exists.
It’s not something that an adult woman sees often.
After 25, we’re wearing beer goggles that run on emotional and mental connection. “He’s hot” means “he’s hot to me because he knows about Shakespeare.”
You have the honest male beauty that reminds me I’m alive.
Long torso, perfect inverted triangle from the shoulders to hips, strong muscles holding the body up, proudly and effortlessly.
To even see a man stand up straight without laboring over it is a relief to my eyes.
The C-shaped specimens I’m surrounded by daily leave me feeling like I live in a world of eunuchs.
They get up after being hunched at the computer for too long, drag their feet around, lacking the physical ambition to even adjust their posture. They make it clear they don’t care about their bodies. Naturally, how can they care about mine.
There was such an ease to your physical aliveness. It made you glow.
If, for whatever reason, you are attached, or indeed gay, please pass my deets to that performer who was wearing the white shorts in the show.
He was also hot and I believe we could equally have something special.
Author: Lysha Del
Email: [email protected]
Author Bio: Lea lives with two cats and likes yoga.
Link to social media or website: Twitter @LyshaDel_
