I could be talking about the musical, or the world, or my kitchen. We exist in overlapping circles. Currently I am in India, where I am most of the way through a six-month stay away from the U.S.
Soon I will return to Iowa to see family. I miss them. I miss friends. I miss my dog. But I will miss this place when I go, and all my dear friends and chosen family here. I will be back. The thing they don’t tell you about going to other places is the way they can start to feel like home. Suddenly your heart has more than one address. The world is tangly like that.
I am fast approaching the 3/4 mark on my creative writing MFA program and this show is my thesis project. There is still so much to do. I am writing both the musical libretto and a companion book, a piece of braided creative nonfiction combining personal story, mythology research, original mythology, and research on body-centered activism, social change, and belonging.
There is already far too much to tell, and far too much of it is still uncertain, but I have the red thread of it as Goëthe would say. There is a heart to the story now that is beginning to feel real. You know this is happening when the story has something to say that defies summary, where it is not you but the characters and events that have something to say. It is a frightening thing. I hear the voice of Andre whispering in my ear, “Tell it. Tell them the story of the red string…”