My name is Soholm

I may not trumpet the high-pitched tone heard for miles around attributed to my species, but most elephant sounds are rumbles. These low-frequency sounds can travel long distances and are used for everyday communication. My quiet booms inspired Mariel to write my world journey. I am a nonbinary fellow and prefer to use the pronouns they, them.

Soholm's Journey

After a fly from Denmark to Lisbon, Soholm got lost in baggage claims at the Portela Airport, the leading international gateway to Portugal and one of southern Europe's busiest ports of entry. Easily spotted because of their perked-up ears, Soholm hugged their earthy tones as if art depended on a display of self-affection.

At least they managed to leave behind the radiocerium concentrations in air and precipitation in Denmark before its content in Danish food increased by nine compared to 1985. The eighties turned radioactive after Madona's "Like a Virgin" made her Papa Preach in Isla Bonita."

The No. 4 reactor in the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant wore glowing green on 26 April 1986, near the city of Pripyat in the north of Ukraine. Soholm managed to escape the factory in a scooter from what, at that point, earned a rate of seven—the maximum severity—on the International Nuclear Event Scale, making it the worst nuclear disaster in history both in cost and casualties. But Soholm had more critical things to consider, like who would adopt a little gordito who only spoke Dutch in the Americas?

Anita paced back and forth in her hotel room and planned to fly back to her beloved husband Felipe the morning after, with or without Soholm. The Beer Master from Regional, the Venezuelan beer, had left her daughters in Mexico to visit her dying mother in Denmark. With Europe on the verge of a nuclear meltdown, returning to Benito Juárez and drinking a tray full of tequila shots among mariachis at the Plaza Garibaldi occupied her thoughts.

At least, that is the story Anita shared, sobbing in her best friend's arms in Maracaibo after finding her husband Felipe kissing a younger gal. Ada held Anita tight in a "With or Without You" hug. That evening, Anita left Soholm in the care of her best friend, Ada.

When Anita walked to Regional, La Cerveza Nacional, Anita had nothing to win or lose. The Beer Master from Denmark returned to her former home at the Maracaibo brewery after a long absence.

Soholm held his tears in greenish euphoria as Ada held them close to her heart. From the instant they lay eyes on each other, Ada only had eyes for Soholm. Now that her only daughter had left to study abroad, Soholm had their room.

"In the Name of Love," Ada and Soholm watched El Puente Urdaneta from their room every sunset until the day Tito, Ada's husband, brought one-way tickets to the Sunshine State, and Ada and Soholm danced "La Lambada."

Under the sun, Alzheimer's erased husband and daughter from Ada's mind. Soholm, the woman's only love, sang "La Macarena" with his beloved Ada every afternoon at Puerta Del Sol.

Sadly, Gotye's "Someone That I Used to Know" pierced Soholm's heart the day his beloved Ada, breathless over a pool of blood, did not respond to their rumbles.

"Now You Treat Me Like a Stranger," and that hurts. Soholm sobbed. Heartbroken, Soholm cried when Ada's daughter retrieved them from their misery. But Ada's daughter would not share space with a porcelain elephant, and that is how Soholm was adopted by Annie, Ada's daughter's partner's mother, and moved to Midland, Texas, a land where birds flew belly up to avoid the ugly scenery.

Exactly nine years after sharing the top shelf at Annie's shrine, her granddaughter Jess stole Soholm from the Probate Estate. With Jess, Soholm shared Adele's "There is Hope in These Waters" and hoped that a history teacher would go easy on them. The weekend that Annie drove on the opposite lane on the highway, confused and disoriented, Soholm saw the "Blinding Lights."

Who would have thought that a hand-size ceramic expatriate elephant from a tiny town in Europe would travel from Denmark to Mexico City and later find homes in Maracaibo, Hialeah, Tucson, Midland, and Phoenix? Every time the sun went down, Soholm brought paradise to these souls. Conversations with strangers filled their homes. "Miralo. Que lindo elefante."

In the end, Soholm emerged into existence from a Dutch ceramist's good habit, got nothing to control and nothing to lose, and in the process, became a totem for all the women who loved them.

Dedicated to Soholm - My mother's best friend.
March 13, 2022