The Perilous Life of a High-Flying Acrobat

The life of an aerial gymnast is a hard one. One finds that their body becomes hardened, and their hands become covered in callouses from years on the bar. The work is physically demanding, requiring strength, precision, and an almost superhuman tolerance for pain. I remember once doing a double somersault—it was the most difficult of the feats I performed, taking about a minute. The friction of the rope is something terrific; I am currently nursing a bad burn from it. It is a strange business, and for most women, they do not stay on the bar for more than five years. I cannot account for it, except that most of them marry by that time and rarely encourage their children to follow it. Even the theaters are changing. In the past, the buildings were less elegant, and all the guy-ropes, pulleys, and screws necessary were easily installed. But now, with the rub of the show, the manager does not want his handsome auditorium defaced in that manner, and hence the change. I have traveled everywhere, from Maine to California, but I think the most enthusiastic audience I ever had was in Buenos Aires. I swung outward—there was no net, and I was glad of it, for it always made me feel as though it was just there for me to fall into. The distance was thirty feet across, and the drop eleven feet. One, two, three times I swung, and then, with a final leap, I caught my husband's wrist as he stood on the bar below. The big amphitheater roared, and a little halstorm of golden coins fell in a shower about me. Sixty-five years is the average age, and that is quite old enough—even for an aerial gymnast.