There are so many parallels: The act of gathering with people and trusting them with the truth of your life. The acts of laughing and of crying. The act of defining love in a myriad of different ways. This is what I realized as I tried to prepare my own story of one of the most inspiring “Found Families” in my life, and when I thought about my experiences at Ex Fabula storytelling events and workshops. 

For me, the theme for the January 25 Ex Fabula event conjured memories of my brother’s journey in the 1970s and 1980s to find – or construct – a family in which he could be a man, an out gay man, and a musician. Michael was a 38-year-old classically-trained pianist, a conductor, and a professor of music at a university in Southern California. He was a mentor and teacher to many students, even younger than himself – both in music and in self-acceptance. We, his family of origin, had sometimes struggled with his identity and, even though a few of us accepted him, we often were devastated that his identity might cost him so much in 1980s America. We had a lot to learn.  Even when he became ill with the AIDs virus, he and his partner’s home was filled with food, and the glorious sing-alongs that only a party filled with voice students can be. 

In telling my story and in listening to the other powerful stories, I learned that my story about my brother’s Found Family was one of many threads in a beautiful tapestry of belonging.

The setting was particularly fitting for the weaving of a “belonging tapestry.” Anodyne Coffee — its name means “capable of soothing or relieving pain” – provided a warmly lit stage where cocoa, coffee, and tea were offered alongside alcoholic beverages. 

Storyteller after storyteller told of finding family–

  • Among singers and other musicians in the 1980 AIDS epidemic,
  • In a Milwaukee Public school where, for the first time, a young teacher could use their brand-new Spanish and be called by their true pronouns,
  • In a grocery store parking lot, when the storyteller’s family took home a stray cat and resolved a family conflict,
  • Among a house full of college friends whose tangled love relationships became life-long families,
  • As a  young college student who found their way to acceptance, self-acceptance, and true love in their binary identity,
  • As a  “found cousin” in an Ancestry search who became, not a scandal or a secret, but a cherished member of the family,
  • As an independent-minded woman who didn’t want to  “see herself in a retirement community” found instead – to her surprise – a creative, activist community of friends and support. 
  • As an activist who sought to create an intentional, anti-capitalist community, and found both great challenges and friends who would “ding dong ditch” gifts of gourds on her doorstep. 
  • As a birth mother who found family when contacted by the adult daughter, she had given up at 15. They now have a solid, joyful relationship. 

Ultimately, one winner had to be chosen to wear the fabulous Ex Fabula crown for the evening. The winner will participate in the end-of-season “ALL STARS storytelling event. Eileen Michael, who found surprise family on Ancestry.com will be this night’s ALL STAR storyteller!  What I will most remember about this evening was in how it changed and rewove the meanings in the two words of the title: “Found” and “Family.”  In telling these stories of finding and redefining, weaving, and reweaving families, many of us truly find ourselves.