Why I Quit My Job And Joined The Circus

I remember my first trapeze class like it was yesterday. I climbed up the ladder and stood on that tiny pedestal 25 feet in the air, thinking, I’m going to die. I was 24, and my dad had just passed away from bile duct cancer.

My father had raised me since I was four. After my parents separated, it was just me and him in Los Angeles. We were so close that I moved back in with him when I returned from the military. I had a great job—stable work, good pay, benefits—fixing equipment at the Anheuser-Busch brewery. When a friend mentioned she’d started trapeze classes, I was dealing with my dad’s diagnosis and too preoccupied to really notice. Then, when he passed and I was trying to get out of the house, get into my life again, it came back to me: Did she tell me she was flying trapeze? That’s crazy; I want to try it. So I went.

The first time on that platform, like I said, I was scared. But I told myself there were safety lines; all I had to do was listen to the instructors. So at “ready, set…hup!” I grabbed the trapeze, swung through the air, and hung by my knees before dropping to the net. I did the trick. And I was hooked.

I continued to take classes, and about eight months later my instructor’s friend, who had a small family circus, asked, “You wanna fly in the show tomorrow?” I thought he was joking. But he wasn’t. They wanted me to do a somersault and an upside-down split, where the catcher catches you in midair. (I called mine the Flying Y because I wasn’t that flexible and my legs made a Y instead of a straight line.) At that point I had never done either without the safety harness. But they promised to scoop me up if I blew it. So I said OK—and I did the show. I can’t describe the feeling because it was so incredible. It was like, Oh my God, I can do it.

Performing with that circus was so much fun that when I heard Ringling Brothers was looking for a trapeze artist, I called and got my first paying gig. I took a leave of absence from my job for three months and went, with my cat, to live on the company train. I just loved it—so much so that when I came back, I quit the brewery, gave everything to Goodwill, and drove to Florida, this time to work for The Big Apple Circus. That was 13 years ago. I’ve been on the road ever since.

Now I travel with my boyfriend, also a trapeze artist. We have our truck and trailer filled with our four cats, two dogs, three frogs, and a buttload of tools. My latest act is trying to find work as the human cannonball, which is huge. Only a couple of women do it—and a black chick? I don’t know of any others like me.

I always thought you had to be an amazing gymnast to do trapeze. You don’t. What you do have to do is trust strangers with your life. And listen to every direction thrown at you. That’s a lesson for life, because it’s often so hard to listen to what others are telling you.My dad left L.A. only twice before he died; he was too worried about taking care of me. So I knew I needed to go explore and meet people and do things because he never did. Even though I never know where my next gig will be, I love the life I have now. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. —as told to Maggie Mertens