I was born with the gene that makes you want to tell stories. It’s definitely an inherited trait—my mom’s ability to embellish and exaggerate is unmatched (all other family members agree). She, in turn, got her gift from my grandmother, a weaver (of actual yarn). Here’s a journal from when I was six years old and living with my professor-parents on their sabbatical in Turkey. I remember wanting to actually write down every minute, and in the first chapter (entitled “Nothing”), my sister thwarts my efforts by asking me to get off the rug so that she can sweep it.
The second chapter, or “Christy’s Birthday Party,” reveals the first kernels of a family dynamic (“uhhh!”). There’s also a chapter of our trip to Hungary, where we first stay at a questionable hotel on the Yugoslavian highway (“the food was not so good”; and my parents later told me that they discovered in the middle of that night the hotel doubled as a brothel), followed by a meeting with Hungarian family friend Gustav, who was “fat indeed.” Although in 1976 I assume there were planes, we travelled to and from Turkey via the Stefan Batory, a Polish steamliner. To say that it the trip was, at points, “really rocky” and “some people threw up” is *definitely* an understatement.
Note: My sister Christy, who is now a Seattle-based choreographer, and I have been collaborating on projects ever since this journal was published in 1976.
Garrett Fisher is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Fisher Ensemble. He will be presenting a musical demonstration on The Klavihorn in The Project Room on April 1 as part of his forthcoming operatic film, Magda G.