back to basics

I've mentioned before my talents for sleeping, haven't I? Yes, a quick look through my canon of entries yields the word "sleep" like six hundred million times. There was this entry about how my brothers and I all share the same proclivities for being horizontal. And then this one, where I described in detail my whacky snooze-button logic.

Since I've recently sworn off the little plastic oblong button of happiness, I'm adopting some new morning routines. Actually, it's more like finally getting around to the things I want to be doing with my life.

Like juggling, for instance.

I first adopted the "three-ball" approach to life when I came home for the summer after my first year of college. Somewhere I must have seen someone doing it, and just decided that I wanted that. So I bought the Klutz book and got to work. We had a big back yard, and after I got the basic pattern down, neighbors could entertain themselves by watching Doug chase three beanbags all over our quarter-acre of grassy suburbian utopia.

(It's all in the way you throw them. Beginners tend to throw away from their body, which requires constant chasing in order to keep the balls in the air.)

Anyway, I was totally hooked. In fact, my brothers got in on it, too. Pretty soon, the three of us were doing basic passing games with beanbags. In Mom's living room.

I returned to school, armed with lots more beanbags and a fervent desire to share my newfound skill with anyone and everyone I could. I would spread out on the quad and start juggling. When someone came along to watch, I would offer to show them how to juggle. Usually, I would be able to get someone to throw their first 3-ball cascade within five minutes. While they were practicing, somebody else would show up, so I would get them started. Before long, I would have a little group of people throwing, dropping, and chasing beanbags, just like I did all over my backyard that summer.

I loved doing this. I continued purchasing beanbags until I had quite a collection. And God only knows how many people at Ithaca College learned to juggle in my presence.

At some point in the eleven years since then, I got kind of burned out on the whole juggling thing. I still get them out now and then, happy to show someone how. But juggling itself doesn't hold my attention like it once did. I think I've realized why.

I've been doing a lot of teaching, but not a lot of learning. I've helped lots of people put three beanbags up in the air, but I haven't been improving my own skills. And I miss that. Learning is what gets me fired up about things. It's what makes me passionate. So it's time to get back to basics.

I need something to get me going in the morning, you know? I can't stand coffee. I hate jogging. Can't afford yoga at the moment. But juggling is free, with few side effects. And there's a nice park right down the street from us. So I take my bag o' tricks down there, put on my new headphones, and go to work. Not only is it a good workout (I have weighted juggling balls) but I feel like I'm growing and learning and expanding myself. Fantastic way to start my day. And I'm getting better, too! After just a few days. I can already do a couple tricks that I never could before.

Anyway, to make a short story long (as my father would say) I'm juggling again, and it's great.

Posted: Tue - April 13, 2004 at 10:41 PM

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back to basics

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