Its what? I raise my eyebrows. “Apaje!” He eyes follow the balls that he has mentally created (and apparently hallucinated) into thin air, “It’s a French word.”
Why didn’t you just say ‘apex’? As I wonder if his French is influenced by being raised in Canada, he continues, “Get me three identical objects.” I contemplated handing him three DVD cases, but someone else handed him the miniature oranges, the kind that come in the huge cardboard box.
“Don’t look at your hands, just the balls in the air.” He tosses an orange slowly in one hand, over and over. “Use muscle memory for the timing. At the apex, do something else with your other hand.” He then snaps his fingers when the orange reaches the top. Toss, snap, toss, snap, again and again.
I am kind of sad that he replaced his invisible balls with tangible tangerines. Because though juggling is an accepted metaphor for life—“dropping the ball” and all that— I think about how his hallucinated juggle session was a much better reflection on me and my experiences. In the end, all my stresses and pressures have been made up by me. And, since my worries are usually self-imposed, I should not care so much when, inevitably, I drop a ball.
For this metaphor to work, I quote Mr. Finnigan, the one with The Joy of Juggling: “A drop is a sign of progress, and everyone learns to juggle, drop by drop.”
Heck, I could even turn by life/juggling into a comedy routine. When something doesn’t quite go my way I can make up excuses for my juggling errors.
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