Almost inevitably, when people learn I’m a juggler, the first question is, “How many balls can you juggle?”  Every time I hear it, I cringe at this question for several reasons.  First of all, the question shows a lack of appreciation of the real art of juggling.  It is said that a juggler is only as good as his three ball routine.  Numbers juggling is not the be all and end all of a good performance; In fact it’s not even all that important to the quality of a show.  Also, once given an answer, the questioner almost always says, “Why can’t you do… whatever the next number is?”  Finally, for me it’s a hard question to answer.  I consistently perform five balls, but I have only performed six a handful of times.  In fact, I went decades, literally, without performing six before I was ready to reintroduce it.  Even now, I only do it on rare occasions.  Do I tell them I juggle five or six? There was even a time I was actually working on seven balls.

It was probably the mid 1990’s when I was really striving to master this number.  I remember stretches where I worked on it daily, and stretches when I let it rest for a period of time, but I never got it to the place where it was performable.  At best, I could toss all seven balls and catch them all as well.  More often, one or more of the balls succumbed to gravity and hit the floor with a thud.

I remember one day, though, when Sue, our oldest two girls and I were visiting my father at his Essex Junction, Vermont home, and, as I often did, I got up early in the morning and, after my first cup of coffee, went into his driveway and practiced my juggling.  When I felt adequately warmed up, I took out my seven bean bag style juggling balls, and gave it a try.  For the first and only time, I did eleven tosses with the seven balls, and caught them all; No drops whatsoever.  I was thrilled.

Then I looked up at the kitchen window.  My father had pushed the curtain aside and was watching.  His applause was silenced by the closed window, but he was clapping and smiling broadly.  I smiled back and held up seven fingers.  His eyes got big and he mouthed the word ‘Seven!?’  I nodded.  But this silent exchange wasn’t enough glory-basking for an accomplishment like this.  I went inside, and over another cup of coffee, he and I relived the seven ball cascade I had accomplished with no less vigor and detail than if I had hit a game winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning of the World Series.

 After a few minutes of celebrating, I went back outside and finished my practice.  However, I will never forget those few seconds where I nailed the hardest trick I’ve ever tried, unaware that an appreciative audience of one was looking on.  I always knew my dad was proud of me, not because I was always a great son, but because that’s the type of man he was.  But that morning it was something more intimate than fatherly pride.  We had shared a moment that no one else in the world was privy to. 

I never juggled seven so well again, and I haven’t even tried it for many years.  I probably never will try it again.  It’s certainly not essential to my performance, and it would be very time consuming to even approach mastery.  It doesn’t matter.  My seven ball juggling  was meant for that one moment in time and for my father and nobody else to share in.  I’ll treasure that forever.