“People were staring at me and my mannequin!” said MSA grad student Kenton Jones to a crowd already engrossed in raucous laughter. Sally, the mannequin, whom Jones went “dumpster diving for half an hour, digging for just the right body parts,” rode naked with him during his evening commute home on Chicago’s “L” train.
Sally was the single aspect that in some unconventional way allowed Kenton to call his first tiny apartment “home.” This happened in part because she perfectly completed the space, but also because Kent always will remember that summer when his best friends came to stay and staged the perfect prank when “Sally attacked!”
Appropriately, ‘Home” was the theme of Campus Life’s first Storytellers Lounge, from 9-11 p.m Thursday in the Student Center’s SkyLounge. The atmosphere was accordingly intimate, candid, personal, serious and simultaneously light-hearted. Spotlights illuminated the stage and soft colors like Christmas lights hung over attendees, allowing students and Campus Life staffers to let their hair down.
It was unexpected, hearing Amy Johnson, CMT lecturer and assistant director of the forensics program, share quirky self-realizations that included “having gypsy blood and an aversion to technology.”
Hearing Mary Larkin, program coordinator of Eastern Michigan University’s LGBT Resource Center, admittedly say aloud for the first time, “I am the adult child of an alcoholic.” But the space was a safe zone, the circumstances evocative. Speakers shared themselves honestly, and audience members listened whole-heartedly.
Moments moved seamlessly among suspense, comedy and drama.
“I started my sophomore year [in high school] and at the same time, I started AA,” undergrad James Quesada led in, but we learn by his senior year he had turned his life around.
After talking to a friend, Quesada realized what he hadn’t seen and what his mother was truly addressing. He considered her childhood and struggles.
“I came back home, and we hugged it out,” he said.
He told her he was grateful she provided for him, “the kind of home environment she never had.” An internal light bulb clicked on, relief washed over the room. “Thank you,” said Quesada, hopping down to his seat.
“I want to sleep in my own bed, not the couch Andy pissed on,” was one of MA student Parth Thoria’s main points about getting his own place.
Highlights also include Dr. Eboni Zamani, who got a rise performing a rap she wrote in Chicago, in grade school on Christianity. Zamani also showed a side of herself dubbed “Cedrica the Entertainer!”
More so, it was unexpected to witness such candid portraits of personal experience.
“I’m searching for a love I once knew. It pushes me further, keeps me grounded. This love is my mother’s love, and that’s my home,” said senior Jawan Jackson, who spoke on life in the face of his mother’s passing on Oct. 10, 2005.
It can be expected, to walk away with an appreciation for those who chose to share a bit of their own humanity as well as a sense of introverted thinking, realizing, coming to terms with and all that encompasses what oneself experiences as “home.”
“Having a forum like this really causes you to think, it’s prompted me to be real with myself and real with my situation,” senior Orlando Bailey said.
Sitting on the edge of the stage after the show, Bailey mentioned he agrees with something Zamani said earlier, “Home is not a space, it’s a place where your head and heart most align.”
“I grew up with both parents … then my dad left,” he said. “Home is not a situation I smile on, going back to that place. So home is where I make it. I get there at night, say a prayer … and I’m comfortable.”
