He could not pronounce 'Ellen' so he called me 'Mary Elephant' I was a baby, and he was three and a half. Anything Joe liked, I liked. Anything he called me, I became. My older brother, as older siblings do, shaped me. Some days we were inseparable. As we grew, some days were difficult. I always looked to him for definition. 

I became an elephant. One evening, Joe sat with his speak n' spell working over his vocabulary list for the third grade. He asked, "How do you spell Elephant?"

"E-L-E-P-H-A-N-T" I replied. 

"She is in kindergarten!" he said with tears in his eyes. I didn't understand, because I thought he knew that he was the one who taught me that word. 

I was told to go to my room. I didn't play downstairs while Joe did his homework anymore after that. 

In Melbourne right now there is a parade of elephants all over the city. Mosaic elephants, painted elephants, knitted elephants, all with their trunks up, of course. I see them everywhere and it makes me feel home. I asked a dear friend of mine, a man I was once in love with, who I still very much love, to draw me an elephant.

I just want a little elephant with me all the time. One that can never leave. 

Now I have an elephant sitting above my left ear. 
I just wish Joe was still here. 

Contact Connect

Last night was my last evening with the Melbourne Contact Improv Jam at Cecil st studios. I attended a improvisational teacher training workshop my first week in Australia with Al Wunder, and I immediately fell in love with the space. It has a feeling much like Eden's Expressway in Soho and The Woods Cooperative in Ridgewood Queens.
The contact community in Melbourne is really open and accepting and I know I'm really going to miss it.
As I type this, a train is carrying passengers like myself away from Melbourne to Ballarat and beyond. Al Wunder has invited me out To stay with him and his wife for a few days. I'll be back for the weekend, but then Sunday I will depart for Sydney. I am really going to miss the community, the city of Melbourne, and the very special people with whom I've had the pleasure of dancing and laughing. 

This is a jam where I really felt contact. 
Returning to New York feels like a dream to me now. I am so comfortable here. 

Finding home in many places is a blessing, to be sure. There is just so much more to love this way.