What do Cirque du Soleil and Duluth have in common? They've both recently caused me to ponder what the hell I'm doing with my life. To be fair, my morning trip to Starbucks and watching Top Chef both have similar effects, but that is not the point.
I took the boys to see Kooza last weekend. I have a love/hate relationship with Cirque du Soleil. The artistry and vision that goes into their productions nearly brings me to tears, but I could do without the clowns and I despise the predictable bit with the person who we're supposed to think is a randomly selected audience member, but is actually a member of the cast. But, I digress.
Kooza is amazing (perhaps you would like to read this article about it) and it was really fun to get to experience it with the boys, who were similarly amazed. Cirque du Soleil productions tend to cause me to wonder why I didn't pursue a career in, say, highwire acrobatics (I mean, besides the obvious reasons), but I hope that for the boys, it opens their eyes to the possibility that with enough training and dedication, one actually could travel the world doing such things.
I'll say it here now, lest I forget once my boys are actually on the cusp of becoming adults: If they ever want to run away with Cirque du Soleil, I will encourage them to follow their dreams...as long as they call often.
So, with my laments of not being a circus performer still fresh in my mind, we took the kids to Duluth this past weekend. Honestly, I wasn't that excited about it. A three-hour drive to look at a lake isn't my idea of fun, but the boys fell in love with Lake Superior last year...
The boys' top three activities of the trip were (in order): 1) throwing rocks in the lake, 2) swimming in the hotel pool, and 3) eating Fruit Loops at the free hotel breakfast. It's entirely possible that similar results could be achieved in our own neighborhood with a stream, a trip to the public pool and a stop in the cereal aisle, but there's something fun about road trips, right?
Actually, I ended up having so much fun that I revisited my fantasy about selling our belongings in order to buy an RV and become a traveling family. There's something magic about that lake.
I figure all I need to enact this plan is: 1) a job that I can do from an RV (hmmm...sounds like being a freelance writer might work), 2) a job for my husband to do from an RV, and 3) the licensing, knowledge and fortitude required to homeschool my kids. And the RV, of course. Yep, in no time, we'll be ditching this pesky house we built and heading off into the sunset...
And I will never have to ponder what I'm doing with my life again. The end.
