I was at a three month intensive writing workshop in Koh Samui, Thailand, sat around a mid-sized tile dining room table with six other internationals having dinner when the conversation, which had been on families and upbringing, shifted. “At least you’re not a circus freak,” I heard across the table. Our editor, a woman in her 70’s who had broken the glass ceiling of female editing in NYC in the 80s and was thus a pioneer of ‘doing things differently’, had said, poking around at the fried egg on top of her rice. “It’s not like those people have any real family or morals to speak of,” she continued. 

I had heard veins of this thought process throughout my whole life. It was impossible not to. Barnum and Bailey had done their damage with the menagerie and freak show and carnies, and now that’s mostly what anyone really thought of when they thought of the circus. Generally I stayed quiet when conversations went this direction. The stigma associated with being a clown had been thrown violently in my face throughout my life, right along with notions like speaking alien (AuDHD) and some confusion regarding my gender (bi-gender / bisexual). I had been shown the disdain of ‘being different’ simply forever – deviant and subsequently somewhat dangerous by design. I knew from experience, both mine and others, that when you began to defend or explain your being, let alone the circus, that people got… uncomfortable, and often combative. 

But this was Thailand, and we were writers, explorers, excavating the hows and whys of different cultures and perspectives. And we had been together in this house, on this island, for weeks now. We were close, at the very least friends. My editor had challenged the standard norm; had worked outside the box. Surely she didn’t know, or mean, what she was saying.  

“I ran away and joined the circus,” I said in a voice that was quiet but not meek. The table froze. It might have been my tone; the unyielding and defiant nature of it. I looked up at my editor. “I’ve lived in the circus for nearly 20 years, and I can safely tell you, they are as much, if not more of a functional family than most families I’ve seen in America.” Her face was frozen, a mixture of shock and horror as I stared her down, dared her to argue with my first-person perspective. And then she broke eye contact. The table remained uncomfortable and quiet for a moment, and then a sweet gal from England casually changed the subject to food and the mood eased. 

Later, after dinner, as we all sat in the overhang during the nightly summer monsoon, my editor apologized. She admitted that she really knew nothing about the circus, had never really been to one, and that her comment was prejudiced, just a slur she had heard throughout her life and never really considered. It was gratifying to hear, but not surprising. Media always made us out to be drug and sex addicts that would rob you and your family, or worse. This kind of prejudice was standard. We’re okay so long as we entertain you, but we aren’t people, and don’t deserve to be treated as such, because what kind of person would voluntarily run away and join the circus? Such a person must come from a bad family, or have fucked up royally. No one really takes the time to look deeper. And how can they, when the circus moves so often? 

My editor went on to tell me that she thought I was smart and kind and capable, and that if I was a representation of the circus then the circus must be a good place. The rest of the group joined in and began asking me in earnest about my times and experiences. It was the first time I had ever spoken up for myself and was rewarded for advocating for myself. It felt good, and strange, and made me keenly aware that humans suffer one truly enormous problem above most other problems: they only know what they know. 

I didn’t start out in the circus. I wasn’t born into that lifestyle. My early years are a unique and strange and wonderful and terrible story, but a tale for another time. The important thing to know is that when I was 16 I underwent a fairly significant psychological existential break. I’d say this was a crisis, but the reality is that it was quite a bit more violent than that and included doctors and a fair amount of ‘help’, which translated to me as torture. Part of the problem is that I was born well off, and I found the world I was brought into to be… false. I questioned too many things. Wondered too much about the why of any action or choice adults made around me. For lack of a better explanation, I realized the utter lie that was this societally prescribed life, and cut the umbilical cord from my perceived reality to a much more honest, much more raw version of reality, wherein I knew nothing and knew that I knew nothing. 

It was very much like being reborn, and I was beyond fortunate that I stumbled into the right café at the right time with the right group of people who took one look at me and understood what I was going through. They couldn’t understand the extent of it, of course, and neither could I explain it, but they could sympathize with the feelings; had gone through similar things.

They took me deep into the mountains, under the full moon and big oak trees, put me in front of enormous speakers and told me to dance. That was it. That was seemingly all it took. 

Of course it was more than that. It was friendship and camaraderie and compassion and gallows humor. It was coffee and philosophical debates and learning to macgyver and fix things, learning to not just survive but to live with very little and be happy about it. It was fire dancing and music that wasn’t based on beat matching, but rather on the art of taking you on a journey of the self through sound. It was big art and performance and staying up all night and all day and finding the actual boundaries of mind and body, instead of the complicated web of expectations society had hoisted upon us. It was confronting your fears in the mirror with the aid of guides and meditation to become friends with the parts of yourself that you didn’t particularly like. Or if not friends, then at least a sort of comfortable acquaintance who would sit quietly in the house of your mind. It was easier than having them thrashing around and vying for attention against the walls. 

The mountain parties were the best of times, and though that wasn’t exactly a circus in the classic sense of the term, it was absolutely my first circus family. The arts were there, practice and skills, the knowledge. We didn’t simply perform for the rubes (general public), but for the stars and skies, which were our big top. 

It was no particular surprise to anyone that when I was 21 I moved to the big city (Oakland, CA actually, though The City refers to San Francisco) and joined an actual circus. Candy Mountain Circus, in Oakland, would be the first of five circus families I would come to know and love. Candy Mountain Circus was a bit of a mixed bag in that our big top was an old abandoned metal shop warehouse where 14 of us lived together in rooms we built without ceilings and aerial silks and stadium seating for our shows, and two kitchens and more art hanging from all surfaces than one could really see in one visit. We performed regularly to pay our rent and partied hard with the surrounding warehouses in our neighborhood, and at the clubs and underground parties in The City. 

Those days of the circus warehouse circuit all resembled each other to some degree. We absorbed abandoned factories; brought and assembled whatever materials we could find or source from our jobs or from the world. We made fae/futuristic/tent cities in those spaces; but they weren’t cheap or drab or made of cardboard and imagination. Rather they were walls made of window frames and glowing bright shiny sheets of fabric; rooms made out of scrap wood to resemble a giant eyeball, accessible by a spiral staircase sourced from some other old dilapidated building no one cared about. We built stages out of bits of old piers and cars, suspended long silks and upside down trees and giant netting from the rafters, made stadium seating out of stacked couches and wine barrels. It was like a giant adventure zone for wee kids, the building blocks and foundations for immersive art installations like Meow Wolf, except we were all full sized and would drink absinthe and smoke hookah and recite poetry at 3am to groups of artistic gremlins sewing and soldering and clucking about like a bunch of hens. 

And the costumes. Always with the costumes. Each warehouse had its own closets, and we would share. Arrive in one outfit and depart in another; like a walking New Orleans brass band parade of teapots and jousting bicycles and big hats and funky glasses and so much laughter and character. Curious neighbors often would linger outside to ask if it was an event, or just a tuesday. 

While I lived there I got a job at Teatro Zinzanni, an actual big time dinner circus located on the Embarcadero in The City. The legend, more interesting than the actual history, was that a circus had been touring around the United States in the early 1900’s in a few Romani four-wheel carriages which folded out into a floor and tent. Their last stop had been the Embarcadero during The World’s Faire on Treasure Island in 1939, and they never left. The carriages had lived their life, and to be honest, the city was as far west as one could get, the dream of profits and love, and the circus family who owned it all, they stayed. Generations later the tent still stood and had transitioned from your average circus to a dinner theater circus. 

This was entirely false. The circus was started in Seattle, WA in 1998 and still exists there. It had expanded in 2000 to The City and was considered an innovation, somewhere between vaudeville and Circus du Soleil with fine dining. The Bay Area location closed in 2011 due to development, but that’s neither here nor there, really. 

The professional circus was wonderful. They flew in circus artists from all over the world, the best there was in contortion, aerials, fire, magic, juggling, everything. The general service staff had to be able to sing and dance while they served. It was immersive theater, one of the first of its kind, and it was so so magical.

My housemate and I got a housekeeping job with Teatro Zinzanni. We would pick up artists at the airport and set them up in temp housing. We ran errands. We sewed. Anything. Any roustabouting that needed doing, we did it. And for that we got to watch the show, touch the costumes, meet the artists, laugh and learn about the whole unique world. 

When the circus closed we managed to absorb many of the circus props, including the giant red velvet circus curtains which weighed a million pounds and truly set the stage for our inhouse antics, as well as the stage fore drop with cup lights and plywood painted fringe. The next warehouse we moved into, we framed an entire hall with the goodies and made yet another circus all of our own in our house. 

Aside from those circuses, I also worked and collaborated with The Vespertine Circus and the Vau-de-Vire Society Circus. I had two acts, generally. The first was that of a bad mime. I would put on mime makeup and stumble into someone else’s performance drunk and belligerent (usually accompanied by a whiskey bottle full of tea I pounded to great excess). I would fall asleep amongst the guests, snoring loudly until the performance was over. When roused by the clapping I would wake, stumble into the stage, pick up a sword, and move into a highly choreographed and elegant sword dance. I had studied many forms of sword play and dance by this time and, not to toot my own horn, I was quite something to behold. It was an act made to break the expectations of the guests – to shake them from how they thought things were supposed to work – yes, even in the circus. My second act was fire dancing, usually with fans, though sometimes I did duel acts with swords with a friend. Those performances were relegated to outdoor events, for all the obvious reasons. People are inexplicably drawn to fire. It doesn’t matter if you happen to be technically good. I had my good days though.

Each circus or location we performed in differed in style greatly. The Vespertine Circus was focused heartily on Alice and Wonderland, and so their stages and props and home were a kerfuffle of twisting fabrics and goth pastels and misshapen balls and cubes with all sorts of little tchotchkes which scream Mad Tea Party… if that Mad Tea Party was located in West Oakland and harkened back to Harlem-stye-Jazz and Punk Rock. The Vau-de-Vire Society Circus considered themselves slightly more formal, focusing on classic vaudeville with its deep velvets and pewter and almost smokey French romantic Victorian vibes. Of course, the themes changed per season, based on the show’s theme. But overall the home aspects of those circuses, and the warehouses themselves, reflected those sentiments. There were other artist spaces too, leaning more towards fabrication and big art than circus aesthetics, but still counted in some way or another. Places like NIMBY, American Steel, Kraftworks, The Woods, Department of Spontaneous Combustion (DSC), The Phenomenauts, Mission Control, OtherWorld, Sunshine Biscuit Factory, The Vulcan, The Bordello, Ghostship… backdrops for all sorts of mischief and Night Bazaars and shows with big fire art by the Flaming Lotus Girls. 

Through all these adventures, all these families, I eventually made my way to the Burning Man festival, and eventually the staff. There are, in this particular industry, considered two main circuses one can strive towards. One is Circus du Soleil, and the other is Burning Man. 

Circus du Soleil is a proper classic circus. We see advertisements for them around the world year round. They are the best of the best, the top of the top. They are a traveling circus that focuses solely on performance. They are the BIG TOP. And with all celebration, they really are absolutely amazing. I’ve had the privilege to know many who have worked and lived that life. If there was an Olympics for circus arts, this would be it. 

Burning Man, by contrast, is less the big top and more the rest of the circus: the menagerie, the subtents, the arts, the actual environment of the circus. To draw a clear image of what I’m talking about, and going back to good old Barnum and Bailey, a circus used to happen like this:

A train or caravan would roll into town in the middle of night and find an out-of-the-way field or dockside to set up. At first light would come the roustabouts and carnies: those are the people with no particular ‘special’ skills who work the circus, often back then composed of the poor, sometimes alcoholic or drug addicted, sometimes criminal, sometimes simply unfortunates who had nowhere else to go. On rare occasions these people would get out of line, but mostly they were simply the unwanted of society. They were homosexuals, or women deemed ‘hysterical’ or evil, or had autism or Down’s Syndrome, or a physical disability, or were runaway slaves, or had lost their families to some tragedy, or had run away for love, or had been born on the wrong side of the tracks and were never given an ounce of anything good in life. These people were strong and capable, and once you got to know them you knew them to be largely kind and caring, as most anyone is who needs care and attention badly and has finally found some. Society deemed them deviant because they didn’t conform. That didn’t make them bad. 

The roustabouts and carnies in the morning’s soft light would set up the tents. Big top for the aerials and trapeze and main show, smaller tents as well for the animal menagerie, for the fortune teller, for the men’s only show (strip tease), for booths for food and games, and for the freak show. Barnum and Bailey did the world both a horror and favor by establishing the freak show. The favor was to give those people a home and place to be – a chosen family. It was better than being beaten and spit at on the streets, by miles and miles. But the horror was putting them on display to be gawked at and mocked – as though giving the rubes permission to be terrible was somehow better. Yet, it would be ignorant not to consider the possibility that by displaying them a favor was done to the whole of humanity, which would lead to the acceptance of disabilities as we see them today. We in the circus still have mixed feelings about the abuses those people endured, both within and without the circus. We have mixed feelings about whether this was a help or hindrance surrounding the concept of being accepted for being different. It’s possible we will never truly know if the circus was the catalyst, the in-your-face that the world needed, to start accepting instead of fearing.  

Next the handlers would rise. These folks would care for the animals, elephants and tigers, would set up rigging, would put booths together and start cooking, decorating music. Handlers are a necessary and under-acknowledged part of the circus. It literally wouldn’t function without them, and it is highly unlikely that you would ever see or know about them. Next would come the performers. Special. Bright. They would have nicer quarters; would be treated like movie stars. They’d spend the day rehearsing, checking their surroundings and gear, ensuring everything was set for a good show. And lastly you would have the ringmaster, the showman himself. The boss of bosses. It was his show, his house, and nothing happened in the circus without his knowing. Nothing. 

Comparatively Burning Man functions in almost this exact way. It’s a much bigger event than the circuses of old, and those roles and positions are split into more organized departments with clear operational procedures and expectations. The Department of Public Works (DPW), for example, and for which I spend my days, does the jobs of both the carnies, roustabouts, and handlers at the same time. The Gate Perimeter and Exodus team (GPE) functions as barkers (often drawn from the ranks of handlers who are charismatic and loud enough to pull attention), drawing the rubes (participants in this case) in; tearing that proverbial ticket, as it were. The performers are actually composed of artists who set up their own performances of their own accord, and the showman, the boss himself, he is now a cabal of upper management who maintain the land and relationships with local counties, law enforcement, and ensure that the employed staff is paid, protected and maintained, the land respected. It is quite the endeavor. 

Overall, it is the most circus of circuses, and when looking at its own big top at the Center Camp, it’s impossible to stand there and not understand. 

The thing about the circus, about the family that are those people, is that this family accepts you for who you are, from your good or bad roots, to your blossoming or degrading branches. This family has experienced trauma and loss, both together and separate, and loves and celebrates each other. We don’t look away. We distill ourselves further from the basic existential crisis to understanding the true authentic self. And we support each other as we go down the paths, as we find and approach those aspects of ourselves. Our fears no longer sit in the houses of our minds unwanted, but are approached, spoken too, forgiven, accepted, and made a loving part of the family of the mind. We want you to grow, to do better, to be better. But we understand that’s a road, and that unlearning, and that care and compassion, are often the first steps forward. We don’t ask for perfection. We ask for honesty, cruel and tactless and beautiful in all its forms. 

Watching a person grow inside the circus is one of the most stunning aspects of progress one will ever see. It’s thrashing and it’s realization and it’s power and it’s tears and it’s control and it’s freedom and most importantly, it’s love. The mountains and valleys of love. 

I don’t know why it took me so long to speak up to others about my experiences in the circus. I think it probably had to do with my age and how far I had come at the time. That moment in Koh Samui with my editor, I hadn’t fully come into my own yet – wasn’t fully stripped away, wasn’t fully myself yet. I was still wrestling with my inner demons, with my expectations and those of society around me. I still had such fear of being put down, shamed, told I wasn’t enough. It had been such steps being in the circus in Oakland and San Francisco. I had come so far. But out in the world, without my community and chosen family and the confidence which accompanied them… I had to learn to stand on my own two feet; to use my voice to advocate for myself, and to speak for all those others who had not yet met anyone like us, who were still afraid and beaten down and believed the lies society told them: that they weren’t good enough. That’s the hardest next step in growing up, becoming an adult really: standing up and speaking up for those who don’t know their own voice. A grown up is just a very large child. An adult takes responsibility for themselves, and those around them. 

But mostly, I hadn’t yet forgiven myself for only knowing as much as I knew. I hadn’t yet forgiven society for only knowing as much as it knows. I hadn’t forgiven inherited fear. I hadn’t come to understand that when people are told to believe the world works one way, and they see something different, that it threatens their way of life, the life they know, and that it is natural for all humans when their life is threatened, to fight back. Personal safety first. 

The life I found was beautiful and stunning and pressed the boundaries of society. The payoffs and the benefits were like living the most amazing dream in which you’re the hero you always wanted to be. The laughter and belly aching and heart touching moments that took our breaths away the way a small child is memorized the first time they see a firework… that’s what my life became when I choose to live a different way. 

My family, the circus, we know that people can live any life they want. We know that when you’re a grown up, for the most part and within reason, you can pretty much choose to do what you want to do. Even abiding by societal standards, meeting basic rules to not hurt others with your choices; there are a lot of options for how to live. We sorrow for those people who would cause others pain because they are afraid. At the end of the day, it is them that hurts the most, and that is… well, that is a choice every person is allowed to make. 

That’s one of the beautiful things about getting older though: your view of life widens, you begin to see more, from more perspectives, and you eventually come to understand one of the greatest most beautiful truths of life: that nothing fucking matters, and that everything fucking matters. 

Ya only know what you know. Imagine how much more there is to know.