My mom used to tell me when I was a young girl how she hated the term “housewife.” “I am not married to the house!” she would exclaim. I always thought she was kind of married to the house. She rarely left and spent her days cleaning and doing laundry, or so I thought. Now that I have been a “homemaker” as she liked to be called, I realize how little she really did. By the age of 15 I was doing the cooking because she really does not like to cook, my dad does all of their cooking now, but she eats very little. She did not care about decorating and blamed that on the fact that we raised baby animals in our house occasionally. I know she watched soap operas faithfully and liked to sew some, but since she never learned to drive, my dad took us to school and I walked home. We were not allowed to have extracurricular activities because he did not have time for such. As soon as my friends were old enough to drive I began to join groups and stay as long as I wanted at school, walking home later and counting on my friends to get me to events away from school. My mom just stayed at home, not involved in anything and doing very little.
I was thinking about how I was a housewife for many years- to use a more modern term a “stay at home mom.” I rarely stayed at home. I was involved in the schools, I worked 40 hour weeks many times at Jon’s elementary school. I went on to teach preschool myself. I was involved in Bible studies and charitable organizations and on and on. I did cook breakfast and dinner most days. I love to clean and decorate and instead of my mother, I had other older women teach me about monograms, gardening, table setting and other Southern traditions. I learned to bake and look at antiques with a discerning eye. It was fun and made me fit into my neighborhood, but I longed for more.
Then I went back to school. And now I have graduated. I was just reading Southern Living magazine on my beautiful back porch. I was looking out over the monstrous hostas and the newly planted annuals. I have spent the first week after graduation getting my life, house and gardens back in order. My porches are clean and ready for anything, the house is rearranged and full of fresh flowers and the refrigerator is full of fresh ingredients I will actually use before they turn to black mush or mold because I am no longer too busy at a rehearsal all the time! As I read and thought about all of the notes I need to write to people and all of the new recipes I want to try, I thought about being a housewife. And if I am ready to go back to that.
Several times in the last year of school, the head of the department mentioned that he remembered when I came in for my first audition, before I had even started school yet. He would never say what he remembered, he would just get this strange, all-knowing kind of look on his face before moving on with whatever we were there to talk about. I remember that first day as well. I had worked for months on my monologue, something I can certainly do a much better job with now and in a matter of a couple of weeks instead of months. I had carefully picked out songs and worked with my friend Scotty T. and eventually brought Anna into the mix to help me. I drove to Montevallo that Saturday in February and sat in the lobby of Reynold’s Hall, something I would do hundreds of time in the years to come. A nice, thin blond boy walked me upstairs. That guy, I later learned, was named Karow and he would become one of my friends at school. Also waiting downstairs to audition was a guy who looked familiar to me. It turned out he was a show choir kid I had seen around competitions and he too would become one of the people I got to know well.
I walked onto the stage in Reynold’s that first time and felt surprisingly comfortable. I am one of those people who believes in signs and “vibes,” so the calm vibe I got was a good sign. When Karow walked me back downstairs, he told me I did a good job before he left me to go get the next person. I remember thinking that he was nice to say that to everyone, but for the first time that I could remember I actually felt like I had done a good job with my song and monologue. I called Tim when I got to my car and told him I felt good about what I had done and that I was headed home. During the drive the euphoric feeling of being through with the audition and knowing I had not forgotten words or fallen down (my two marks of success in any performance) began to be replaced with a not so happy feeling. The majority of my time on that stage that first day before the faculty was spent in an interview where I was asked questions I felt OK about as far as my answers, but less confident about because of the questions themselves. By the time I had returned home I was not as happy! From the questions I realized that some of the faculty had immediately written me off as “the church lady” type. They saw me as a prude and questioned me about how I would be able to handle the “cutting edge” material they were prone to pick. (After three years I have only seen one thing at UM that I thought anywhere near cutting edge!)
So yes, I remember that first audition, too. I know now that I did not say exactly what they like us to say in an audition introduction. I also know now how to make different and bolder choices with characters in monologues and be more natural in my movements when I sing. But I am not ashamed of my performance that day or the way I answered their questions. I am still disturbed by the fact that one of those professors automatically decided I was indeed the church lady and somehow my presence would take the cool factor way down for the whole department. He was wrong, but he never really gave me a chance. He told me in our first private meeting he would never cast me in a musical and he stuck to his word. I guess I can’t fault him for that- he is a man of his word! He was fair with me in classes and taught me a lot. He also misunderstood everything I said and wrote for all three years and for some reason never gave up the idea that I was there to cause problems. I finally gave up caring about his opinion and I just kept my distance after my BFA project, when I realized that the university might honor me for my grades, my other teachers might like me enough to have lunch with me and the kids might love me as a peer AND mentor, but this one person was never going to “get” me or give me a chance. I had to cut him lose and do my best to finish on top. And I did.
I was told once by another staff member that he viewed me as “a bored housewife.” I believe I blogged at that point that I have never been bored- ever. Too much to read and watch and do to get bored. I consider it a sign of stupidity to be bored. A smart person can always think of dozens of things to do! Even in line at stores I observe people and find things of interest. I almost always have a play in my purse. So yes, I guess to my mother’s chagrin I would have to say I was and am a housewife. But bored, no! And neither boredom nor being a housewife had anything to do with my return to school. So I am sorry, but again he misunderstood me and never really listened when I tried not only to share why I was there, but showed over and over that I was there to do the work, learn the craft and go out into the world to carry on with my art. So for today I guess I am again a housewife, but I am so much more. And hopefully most everyone sees that.
