“Good catch, sorry about the weird leg thing.” It’s 8pm, there's a New England snowstorm raging outside, and my training partner and I are using the back part of a weightlifting gym so that we can continue with our acrobatics while the pandemic has shut down the circus world. Masks, hand sanitizer, distanced from everybody but each other, and worst of all, windows open. It’s worth it though. After a year of downtime due to injury, we’ll do anything to make progress.

A little girl runs over to us, father in tow. She’s wearing a princess themed top and a pink and purple tutu over striped leggings. If five-year-old me had met her, we’d have been the best of friends. Her dad, drenched in sweat after a kettlebell class, tries to keep pace with her as she bounds over to our mat. She stops, grabs his other hand, and jumps as he lifts her up above his head and flips her over. He lowers her carefully but she falls anyway, giggling.

She looks back at me, and I wave my partner over. For the first time in over a year, we have an audience. He tosses me into an assisted backflip. The girl looks at me, eyes wide. We do it again, showing her how her dad can help with the trick (though she’s small enough that he can just do it for her). She gets ready… then laughs… then hides behind her dad. I laugh too.

So we back it up. We do that “airplane” thing that my dad used to do when I was the girl’s age, legs back and arms out, with my belly on his feet. They copy us. Her dad struggles to keep her steady so down she goes, rolling onto her back. She hops back up, ready to go. We do the lift from “Dirty Dancing.” They copy us again, her legs waving happily as she looks at me to see if I’m watching. I am.

Back and forth we go. I do a cartwheel, she does a donkey kick. I do a handstand and she… well, she tries her best. Her dad moves to leave, so we give them a show—I get thrown in the air and flip, landing right side up on my partner's feet. She giggles and claps joyfully, long brown curls bouncing in time with her tutu, screams of delight echoing in the mostly empty gym. She grabs her dad’s hands again, and up she goes, up and over his head and gently down.

Somehow, her dad wrangles his daughter into her coat and shepherds her towards the door. “It’s been a while since I’ve heard a kid laugh,” says my partner. “Yeah, I guess so,” I reply. The little girl does one final “cartwheel,” and this time I’m the one laughing. We get back to training, and as we prepare for the next set, I look to see if she’s watching me. She is.

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