juggling in the rain

The weather out here was uncommonly beautiful last week, for about five days, and I felt myself catching the juggling bug again. (Two years ago, around Easter, I picked up my clubs again and wandered into the Berkeley Juggling Club on a Friday afternoon. I was totally hooked.)

Anyway, my new job has me working until six or seven every night, and Corey and I usually go out on Friday nights. Not to mention the fact that it's been extremely cold, and it gets dark somewhere between five and six o'clock. So I haven't been doing any juggling in the last several months.

But I caught the craving again. And I caught it bad. Went up to the park last Sunday, it being so mild out, but none of the usual jugglers were up there, so I juggled alone. (Not the same.) A couple of young'uns happened by, so I got to get them started on a basic three-beanbag cascade, which was nice, but still not the same.

When I found out this week that our weekend plans had been canceled, I started getting my hopes up. If I could get out of work early, and if Corey and I were able to go out another night this weekend, and if people were going to show up . . . I might just get to satisfy my craving.

So five o'clock hit last night, and I was out the door. The moment (I mean the moment) I stepped out, I felt the first drop of rain. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Grrr. Undaunted, I got in the car and drove over to campus. I'd been battling a cold all week, so I really didn't relish making it worse. I knew the guys had secured an indoor spot for juggling in the winter, but I didn't know how far I'd have to walk in the rain . . .

But I was not to be deterred. I found a parking spot (finally) WAYYYYY on the western edge of campus, put some change in the meter, slung my bag of clubs over my shoulder, and started hiking. It was still raining, but just barely. Misting, really. And I got to the building in about ten minutes. Man, it felt good to walk in and hear clubs dropping again.

So I got myself warmed up a little and joined in. It took me a little while to get my arms going, but I found myself falling into the pattern again. It was GREAT!!!!! There's nothing quite like throwing things back and forth with someone. Kind of like "playing catch" multiplied by six.

Before long, I started to feel my own out-of-shape-ness start to catch up with me. After about 45 minutes, my arms felt like rubber. But I couldn't stop. How often do I get to do this??? So I made mistake after mistake after mistake, but I stayed in there and played hard.

There were about seven of us all together, and a couple of the more experienced guys suggested we do something with all seven of us . . .

Let me just say that I've done things like this before, where we all get in a line and we're catching from one side, throwing to another, passing a club down the line while each of us continues juggling. And that's hard enough. This was something entirely new.

There were four of us in a line. A B C D. Imagine that A and B are facing to the right and C and D are facing to the left. B is passing clubs with both C and D, and C is passing clubs with both A and B. Simple, right? Yeah, except that's only four people. By the time we added another three, my head was spinning, and I was struggling just to keep myself from getting whacked in the head by a stray club. But I made a couple of good throws. And I didn't give up. Which is the important thing.

And it was great.

I need to remember to make time for this in my life.

Anyway, Happy Saturday to everyone. Get out there and make some mistakes.

Posted: Sat - February 12, 2005 at 12:22 PM

getBlogName(); > getCategoryName("C1887902091"); >

juggling in the rain

> >