There’s something magical about a Ferris wheel.
Part of it is the bright lights, and the music, and the slightly out-of-the-real-world feel you get at any carnival or amusement park. You know what I mean? The feeling that you’re in a fairyland made of lumber and paint and sawdust, and that while you’re there you can do or say or eat whatever you want?
Part of it’s the danger, of course. Not that your average Ferris wheel is particularly death-defying. Safe as houses, most times, and even when they do break they mostly just stop so you’re not in danger of being flung into the heavens as much as having to sit in a softly swaying bucket while you wait for the fire department. But still, there is that twinge, the knowledge that you’re rising high into the air and you’re not really supposed to be.
Part of it is the vision you get. You’re seeing what may be very familiar areas but from an angle you’re not used to, and that’s always good for the brain. Shakes it up a bit.
Part of it, oddly enough, is the privacy. Your world is suddenly narrowed down to the contents of that bucket, and whomever you’re sharing it with. It’s intimate. Romantic. Silly.
From, the “pleasure wheels” powered by strong men in Bulgaria and Constantinople in the 1600s to the day in 1893 when George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. welcomed folks onto his creation at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, people have stepped onto the Ferris wheel and stepped off moments later changed. Some only slightly, and temporarily, as befits an amusing carnival ride. Some profoundly, as if they have moved into another world with delight and amazement.
And no one ever checks to see if the same number get off every time, as get on.