Photos by Kathleen Porter

Pulling on the mandatory leggings, I moaned, Why? Why had I registered for this two-hour trapeze workshop?

Sweating, I ambled across the huge meadow fronting the thirty-foot high trapeze scaffolding. “Uncle Tony” strolled up to the check-in table. “You have no idea what you’re getting into,” he said. He didn’t bwa-ha-ha, but did he need to?

“Instant addiction, right?” I quipped back. The man’s eyes lit up. Oh God.

“In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.”   Mark Twain

Son is driving. I am riding shotgun. “Wait for those cars to go by before turn—“ Son abruptly turns left into oncoming traffic.

I tromp on the floor— Where’s the accelerator?!— Ohmygod! I will Son to go faster!Gofaster!Gofaster! Instead, I can’t believe it— he hesitates.

The oncoming car isn’t slowing down.