Riding the Rotor

Pace yourself. You can't spend every day stuck to the wall.

Yesterday was upsetting.

Who am I kidding?

Last week was upsetting. Last month. Last year. The last decade. Whatever.

Surviving The Acceleration

Everything is at a higher volume now — and it’s all picking up speed. We can freak out about this … or we can pause and create a strategy for surviving pretty much anything. (Maybe not global warming. We’re kind of screwed there.)

Because, whatever is going on in life, you’re not going to be good for anyone unless you take breaks and care for yourself in the midst of it all.

Because tomorrow could be full of a lot of shit too.

Pace yourself.

This all feels like that carnival ride they had when I was a kid. It was called the Rotor (and replaced later by the safer Round-up or Gravitron).

This one was in England circa 1950 … but New England in 1972 wasn’t all that different.

Riding the Rotor

Imagine you’re 7 years old.

You enter the circular Rotor through a short door in the metal wall and take a stance with your back against the wall.

Your friends squeeze in next to you — shoulder to shoulder — and you giggle nervously about what is going to happen. You’ve been here before and you’re not really sure why you made yourself go through that little door again.

Then they crank the thing up and it starts rotating. Slow … then faster and faster and FASTER.

And eventually, your body gets pinned to the wall by centrifugal force and you literally can not move. It’s a little fun at first, feeling that pressure all over you.

And then … the floor drops away.

Holy fuck.

Now there’s nothing under your feet and you’re pinned to that wall and it’s rotating rapidly and you’re absolutely terrified and you no longer want to be on that ride. You’re staring at the kids pinned on the wall across from you and you’d scream if you could manage … anything. But you can’t.

Your throat is stuffed with terror and dread and what seems like at least fifty cotton balls.

And all you can do is breathe.

Eventually … the floor comes back up … and the ride slows down.

Then it stops and you all exit out that little door again, with many of the kids vowing to ride it again because “it’s so cool.”

But not you.

You force a smile, knowing you’re done with it until the fair comes back next year and you have to again prove to yourself and your sisters that you're no scaredy-cat.

But you are.

You’re a huge scaredy-cat hidden inside a thousand-yard stare and a pair of Chucks.

You keep that to yourself. The others don’t need to know.

Life Is the Rotor

Life’s a lot like the Rotor … except you’re not seven and you don’t know when the floor will drop away or the ride will end.

When wild times arrive again (and they always do), sometimes all we can do in our moments of terror is keep trying to giggle instead of vomit and cry. (Nobody likes the kids who throw up. And eventually everybody cries.)

But I’m here to tell you that you need to spend time away from the Rotor, too.

Take time to visit the pig barn and hit the burlap sack slides and check out the water pistol races. Get your face painted. Ride the Ferris wheel and see how things grow smaller with distance. (This is more important than you realize.)

Just stay away from the evil clowns.

I’d be happier if this game was Whack a Clown.

Nobody should spend all their time in the Rotor. It’s not healthy. Go in when you need to. Get out the rest of the time.

We have to live also inside of this spinning life.

And sometimes you just need a stroll down the fairway with a little cotton candy. So take one.