9.01.2011

performing with elephants

**Here's another blog post import from a past blog.**

7/10/11
I dreamed I was in a sketch comedy stage show for schoolkids. The cast was roughly 30 people. In the sketch about invasions, my line, delivered in a ridiculously whiny voice, was, "But Rome never let us leave last time!"
I have no idea what that is about.
There were also animals for the circus sketch: I found three baby elephants wandering around and was overjoyed.
They were about the size of baby goats when I found them, but they could shrink even smaller to be the size of dimes. When they were that small, they were just images of elephants on round white erasers. This delighted me, since it meant I could carry them everywhere in my pocket! However, because I didn't understand what magic made the elephants able to do this, I wasn't sure that they wouldn't get squished or suffocate in my pocket. My solution was to tie the erasers together (as if they were marching trunk-to-tail) and carry the trio in my outstretched palm.
The trick to getting the calves to grow again was simple: love them.  When it was time to rehearse the animal skit, I laid the erasers in a line in the floor backstage. Kneeling down, I put my face close to the first eraser. I whispered loving affirmations to the tiny elephant while petting him and slowly he grew, with the others following.
This took place a few times during the course of rehearsals and the performance. I eventually tried paying as much attention to the second and third babies, since I noticed they didn't seem to be getting quite as large as they were when I found them.
The guilt of neglecting elephant calves is heart-shattering.
Somehow, yarrow plants also featured, with mythical alpaca-like animals who survived on them. They were too unpredictable to have in our stage show.

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