Under the Big Top...

My daughter surprised me the other day at the store with a note prefacing something she wanted to show me. In the note, she explained that although she knew I wasn't wild about tattoos, she liked them as a way to contain her memories and keep them with her.

She also wanted to think of something special about her relationship with me, and what she remembered and loved most about me. The two things she landed on were something from my past, and Gilding the Lily. She told me that they represented to her my adventurous spirit, and what I had created in the store and its ever growing community of creative women. Hence, the elephant....

...holding a lily in its trunk.

You may be asking yourself what these two things have in common. For Nathalie, they are an expression of my past and present. You see, I once ran away and joined the circus.

It was an old fashioned, big top circus, and at the time was the biggest show under canvas in the world. I joined my friend Brandon and we lived like gypsies in a trailer, and traveled the length and breadth of the United States, moving every few days. We ran a concession, worked like dogs, but made good money selling Coca Cola. Business was brisk when the weather was hot, and when it was cold, I would sneak behind the popcorn vendor and give it another shake or two of salt...

It was an international community, and my neighbors were from all over the world. I lived cheek to jowl with South American chimpanzee trainers, Czechslovakian performers, tigers, wild Andalusian stallions they finally had to geld, the bears I loved so much (especially Cindy, the cub in the little ruffled skirt), and of course, the elephants. For, besides slinging cokes and running the water for the show, I also rode the elephants in 'spec.' Short for spectacular, this was the start of each show, a parade of every performer, and many of the animals, once around the three rings inside the tent.

My friend and I were fitted for costumes, and ran before each show to the menagerie tent, where we put on our headdresses (14 pounds, no less) and climbed up on the elephants knees when they knelt down at the trainers command. One then grabbed the harness at the back of their heads, and at another command, up they went, and you'd better be ready to sling yourself over their neck and tuck your legs behind their ears. We worked hard on perfecting our waves, and in general, had a helluva good time.

It was an experience I'll never regret, and never forget...for the people, and what I learned in those two years of working in another world. And evidently, neither will my daughter. Funny, when I was doing it, I never thought it was role model material...