I was intrigued when I read the description for a writing workshop, “Place as Character,” at Slough Farm last month. Our leader was Katie Walenta, a Nebraska-born, Brooklyn-based playwright and screenwriter. She said that night, “There are plenty of incredible stories that I don’t think rely on a specific place to be told. Maybe they have a certain universality that can be superimposed onto any location, and still be the same story. I love those stories, but for us, I’m interested in the question, ‘Why here and not there?’”
Walenta led us through meditative questions to help us zero in on an actual or imagined location that would be very specific to the story we subsequently devised.
She explained, “The place is [going to act] as a critical character, with its own wants, wounds, needs, and objectives.” We jotted down answers to 40 rapid-fire questions, just a few of which included, “What are the laws of this place, if any? What does spirituality look like in this place? What would you tell this place, something it needs to hear? What or who is this place’s greatest ally? Will this place be the same tomorrow as it is today?”
Having awakened our imaginations, we went off to write and then returned to share. Each person’s take was fascinatingly different.
Here is Roberta Miceli’s “place as character,” located in her childhood home: “The makeshift bar took center stage. It was another one of my dad’s ‘creative projects,’ also known as a do-it-himself way of not spending money, priding himself on doing it better than a professional while the rest of us cringed at the look. The latest creation was an oversize, thick piece of white Formica speckled with small gold veins and shaped like a Hubbard squash, narrowish on both sides, with a big balloon head on the head.
“Dad made it (not sure how, now that I think about it) and glued it on top of the regular-size counter so we would have more space. More space for what? I’m not exactly sure. We rarely used serving dishes, so it mostly held plates, glasses, and silverware for five people. The oversize, bulbous end looked unnatural, and out of place in the small kitchen.
“Maybe Dad was trying to create a space where all the pent-up emotions could go as we released them through our conversations. Maybe he was trying to create a holding place, a dock.”
We were joined by 9-year-old Adaliah Phillips, who wrote a short, evocative domestic piece: “As I sat in a large chair reading, I felt at ease but somehow stressed, rushed but calm, back and forth, and on and off. Plants lay in the nice vases and pots, but only one caught my eye. It had a familiar logo on it that I’d seen before. It was a blue vase with orange specks, and inside were yellow flowers. I turned away for one second, and suddenly, it was gone.”
Carole Soule nestled her amusing story in the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society barn: “The calves sprinted for the finish line. Sam led the charge, with Charlotte gripping his lead rope in her 10-year-old fist. Venus and Iris ran side by side, while Penny and Skylar sprinted to keep up with this matched pair of Belted Galloway heifers. Scottish Highland steer Owen trailed behind, mooing in protest as the others sped ahead. Sam crossed the finish line first, his lead rope dragging in the sand, with Charlotte laughing and panting close behind. I cheered as I watched, wishing my 74-year-old body, patched with two titanium hips, could race with them.”
I evoked my own happy place, at the end of the trail at Sepiessa Point Reservation in West Tisbury: “Sparkling sunlight embroidered the tender green leaves as I trotted down the rust-earthen path. As always, when I hit this part of my two-hour walk, I nudged the earbuds out and heard the satisfying click of the case closing, tucking them in my black fanny pack.
“Although in the woods, I swear wafts of freshly mown lawn were carrying me swiftly to the open field just ahead. June 16, 2017, swathes of wildflowers swatted my calves as I headed toward the lapping of the breaking waves. Reaching the water’s edge, I stopped. Sepiessa’s superpower poured down upon me, injecting a peaceful serenity — something missing from my crushing urban home. I closed my eyes and looked heavenward on this, the fifth and final day of my brief retreat from the pounding of my New York City life. Steadying my heartbeat to the tinkling of the surf, I suddenly heard from on high:
‘Move here.’
“Without a soul around, I looked the only way I could … upward. Standing erect, hands outstretched at my sides, I said to the billowy heavens:
‘I don’t drive.
‘I don’t have a car.
‘I don’t have anywhere to live.
‘I have two cats, and no one rents to anyone with cats.
‘I’m not making enough money, and, oh, I’m responsible for my mother, who has Alzheimer’s in New York.
‘Other than that, I’m down for it.’
“… December 5, I moved in.”
