Stories of Home
For my blog, Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! I’ve written numerous reminiscences and essays — over a dozen — about moving and home, and sadly, homelessness too. I probably have a book, or at least a collection of stories.
This fall during the pandemic, I wrote and submitted two stories in response to the theme, Within these Walls: Stories of Home for Forward Theater Co.’s (FTC) sixth Monologue Festival. I’ve submitted to five of the six monologue festivals, links to the monologues at the end of this story. For one of my submissions, I received my favorite rejection letter as a writer for the Someone’s Gotta Do It! Monologue Festival, for my submission Maria from the Sewing Room (and Gloria from the Lay-Up Department), which wasn’t selected, but made the semifinals out of 300 submissions.
Dear Linda,Many thanks for submitting your monologue to Forward Theater Company’s Someone’s Gotta Do It Monologue Festival. We were thrilled to receive almost 300 scripts, and our jury delighted at reading and evaluating so many great pieces. And we were especially happy to see so many pieces by local writers (there’s so much talent in Madison)! I wanted to let you know that we greatly enjoyed “Maria from the Sewing Room,” and it did advance to the semi-final round. But unfortunately, it was not among the finalists chosen for the Festival. It was wonderful to get to know your writing, and I’m sorry to not have better news. But I really hope that you’ll continue to watch for future Forward Theater calls for submissions, and that we’ll see your byline again.All the best,Karen MoellerArtistic AssociateForward Theater Company
This year’s Forward Theater Co. Monologue Festival, Within these Walls: Stories of Home, is described as follows from the FTC website “It can mean something different for everyone. For some it is a place, or people, or simply memories made over time. But “home” defines us all in one way or another, and this evocative word serves as the inspiration for FTC’s sixth monologue festival, featuring original pieces written just for us by playwrights from across our community and around the nation. A collection of stories in places borrowed and possessed, offering a thoughtful look at what it means to belong.
Following is the second of two monologue submissions, Moving Stories. I dedicate this to all my friends, family, and loved ones, with whom I’ve shared and made a home together. 46 years ago, I chose Madison as my home. When I take a look at the reason, it’s simple, “I feel at home here in Madison.” It’s been the place where I’ve loved, evolved, recovered, and discovered who I am in this world.
Moving Stories
I’ve also moved more than two dozen times, and each experience taught me something emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually. Moving is more than transporting material goods from one location to another, it’s an inventory of what’s important in life — what to hold unto — and what to let go.
Forty-six years ago, I moved to Madison, my chosen home, from my birthplace in Racine, Wisconsin. Years earlier, I attended a summer high school journalism workshop at the University of Wisconsin – Madison campus in 1967. I knew that summer, this crucible of political activism and youth culture would someday be my new home and I would thrive. Once I arrived, I never left.
I was a bit of a vagabond however, before and after my arrival here in 1974. I’ve moved and established homes countless times for a number of reasons. I never owned a house, never fully put down roots. I always thought — or at least hoped — that each move would be my last, yet over the years I learned that things change as I do. And, with change comes this, “The first step in getting somewhere is to decide that you’re not going to stay where you are.”
When I look back, I’ve moved at least two dozen times, not including the year I couch-surfed as a hippie in the late 1960’s with Frank, the man who later become my husband. We stayed in two or three communal living situations with only our overnight bags and a couple boxes of books and record albums. I promised myself I’d never own more possessions than would fit in a single, large, appliance-size cardboard box. I failed at that promise.
Moving is seldom, if ever, simply the act of packing boxes, moving to a new location and unpacking and settling into a new home. Moving is often the consequence of the decisions we make and the passages we experience in our journey through the stages of our lives.
Sometimes we move for a job, or a relationship ends or begins, we move for economic reasons, to save money, or metaphorically move up in the world. We move to go back to school, or because we purchase or sell a home. We move to escape a dangerous or hostile situation, relationship, or neighborhood. We move because we’ve accepted a new job or lost one. We move because we’re evicted. We move because our family is growing, or someone dies, or children leave home and strike out on their own. We move because we can’t take care of ourselves anymore.
Once my material possessions wouldn’t fit in a single carboard box, I began accumulating furniture, housewares, clothes and linens, books, and artwork, music and plants, mementos, photographs, and other ephemera. Each time I moved I would take inventory, what did I need to hold onto, and what could I let go? It became a metaphor for my life and the choices I was asked to make. As I aged, I realized I needed fewer material things.
I’m a glass half-full kind of girl, so I look ahead to the end of the move, to the unpacking and rediscovery of my life as I unwrap the material things that give my life pleasure and meaning. I enjoy the nesting stage, decorating my new home and getting resettled. I’m a visual person, and my home provides me with aesthetic comfort, a mirror of who I am, and an anchor for where I am.
I’ve lived alone now the past 13 years in three different apartments and home has become my base camp and hideout when I need one. It’s taken me years to be comfortable and enjoy my solitary life. My home restores me and feeds my spirit. I’m able to venture back out into the world and community. I may not have everything that I want, but I have everything that I need. I’m grateful that I’ve always had a home. Others are not so lucky.
I do consider myself lucky. My 91-year-old father still lives in the family home I grew up in. I can go home again, but like the theme of Thomas Wolfe’s novel, You Can’t Go Home Again, I return with a new awareness and a loss of innocence. Yet the sense memories of being there, conjures remembrances of people who are gone, times past, and lives well-lived.
What I’ve learned during my six decades is that we take home with us, wherever we go. A quote that speaks to me and hangs on the wall of my current home is by Arik Berk, “In life, a person will come and go from many homes. We may leave a house, a town, a room, but that does not mean those places leave us.”
One final lighthearted quote that always makes me smile is from the Los Angeles-based comedy troupe, Firesign Theater, founded in 1966, who recorded a number of albums. “If you lived here, you’d be home by now!”
Related Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!
Within these Walls: Oral History
Forward Theater Co. Monologue Submissions
Maria From the Sewing Room (Gloria from the Lay-Up Department)