[33] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • THE FLOOR • May 22 (Patreon)

 There it is. I hit dial on my doctor's phone number. It starts ringing.

If I can get him to just make me a requisition ASAP, maybe I could even sneak in same-day somewhere for imaging. I hesitantly drive the point of one finger slowly into the outside of my knee. Not too bad. I poke another spot, and another. It doesn’t feel like any one spot is actually particularly point-tender. That’s a good thing, right? Or am I just in enough shock or the ice is already numbing me enough that I can’t feel it?

“Our offices are closed for the holiday and will re-open tomorrow morning.”  

DAMN IT.  Fucking holiday Monday. Of course.

There’s an ache clearly radiating up my hamstring and down into my calves, now.  

Now what?

I stare up at the ceiling. I'm not on contract right now–only last week, for rehearsal, and then it re-starts next week when we're in Brooklyn for the show. Do I need to tell someone at Cirque du Soleil about this? What's the right thing to do? If I don't tell them and it turns out I'm really badly injured, what happens? Or, what if I tell them and then it turns out to be something I can work through? Do I need to get documentation of this for insurance or legal reasons? ...Do I go to the emergency room?

I have no idea. But I don't want to be laying on the floor of the circus studio any longer. Home. More ice. Figure it out from there.

I hobble home, stopping to grab three bags of ice from the corner store. Get in the door, pour the ice directly into the bathtub, run the cold water tap on full blast. I stare down at my glacial creation. Baby's first ice bath.

The ice cubes slosh around innocently, a gentle frozen percussion. How bad could it be? It's just five minutes. You can do anything for five minutes.

I curse and swear and hyperventilate for the first three minutes.  

Then just curse and swear the final two minutes.  

I leverage myself out of my torture tub with stiff movements and onto a waiting fluffy towel. My lower half is red and stinging all over but I'm zinging with energy. Slowly, fingers numb and clumsy, I pat myself dry. The pain around my knee feels more contained, muted. And the sprained spot in my lower back is happier too.

I hobble over to the couch. Prop the right leg up on a stool so it's elevated. Stare up at the ceiling. My brain runs two channels at once. One is a dial-tone, empty except for quietly noticing the physical feelings of my body.  The other is a washing machine of thoughts, muted, ceaseless, cycling.

Why is it always like this?  Is this my lot in performing-life?  My entire career, there's always been a major injury, some ridiculous recovery hurdle, to deal with as some big chance arrives.

Bell's palsy before a first shot at facial performance capture earlier this year.  Ripping my hamstring tendon nearly off the pelvis as I started my first big stunt contract years ago. Struggling through its repair and rehab and getting through the 40th Cirque de Demain with it. A bad coach nearly dislocating my hip in Mongolia during contortion training. Unpredictable spikes of neck pain from vertebrae and ligaments doing things they shouldn't. Destroying a weeping, reluctant-to-heal-for-months chunk of my inner thigh with a bad friction-burn right before the Moulin Rouge contract. Nerve traction injuries from straps wiping out a Vancouver contract. So many more.

Is this what everyone’s performing careers feel like? I don’t think it is. I don’t think it is at all.  It can't be. Or...do we all just hide it?

I shift my position slightly on the couch. The sore spot in my low back is complaining. Stupid plexiglas Tower.

Why does it seem like my performing career is just me stumbling and fumbling my way through one experience to the next? Always feeling woefully unprepared, always gritting my teeth and white-knuckling the always-too-short lead-up to an always-Goliath-sized-challenge, always an opportunity I can, won’t, pass up, because I'm convinced it leads to the next thing…?

I keep doing it. Part of me clearly likes doing it. I guess I like the challenge. I could do without the heartache and stress, though. Guess that’s up to me, too. I’m resilient and driven, if nothing else. And high-strung. If I could find a little more chill in my life, that would probably be a good thing.

I swap out my ice packs.

I decide I'm not telling anyone from the Cirque team until I have imaging back for this thing.   

That's tomorrow's mission.

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Your next instalment of Tournelle du Soleil arrives tomorrow at 7am EST / 1pm CEST!

Until then, stay strange and wonderful - XO, ess