A Virtual Vacation

Residents Go Globe-Trotting with Power of Imagination

A year of isolation due to COVID-19 hasn’t kept a pair of Mt. Assisi Place residents from globe-trotting. Their mode of transportation — imagination.

Dana Funk and Linda Randa embarked on their journey last May when, two months into the pandemic, they felt a little stir-crazy. Volunteer Marylou Markovich engaged them in an 11-month exercise that produced Virtual Vacation: Assisi, a short story that transports the authors from the halls of Mt. Assisi Place to the sacred spaces of Assisi, Italy.

Linda’s daughter was scheduled to take a trip to Italy last year when the pandemic put the world on hold. Linda and Dana decided to take the trip for her, even if in mind only. For two hours per week from May through September 2020, Marylou worked with Dana and Linda to envision, research and create a virtual tour of Assisi — the home of saints Francis and Clare, for which many parts of our building are named.

“We did it to break up the monotony,” explains Dana, who exercises her lifelong love of words by writing her own poems. “When they said, ‘Let’s write a story,’ I was there with bells on!”

To make it even more fun, the co-authors assumed new identities as characters in the story — Linda as millionaire mother and grandmother Elizabeth, Dana as English professor Valerie (named after a song by 1960s rock group The Monkees), and Marylou as spa owner Susan.

Marylou then enlisted the help of nearby Avalon Public Library, which lent the group large travel books and Italian tour guides for research. Every location in the story — including each cafe and hotel visited by the travelers — is a real destination in Assisi.

“I thought it was fun to pretend to be somebody else,” Linda says. “It felt like we were really there.”

Before it was published in March, the story went through four drafts, the addition of the poem Image of Christ by Sister Karen Buco, and some creative formatting by Activities team member Patrice Mikec. “This was totally a joint effort,” Linda says. “Marylou and Patrice were a great help. They dressed it up and made it interesting for us.”

Marylou says the whole creative journey has shown that MAP residents still have dreams and, as the story’s prologue suggests, can rediscover creativity they think they’ve lost. “They have achieved something very valuable,” she says.

The authors recently debuted the story with a live reading for the residents of Antonia Hall. “The other residents listened with such reverence,” Marylou says. “It was beautiful.”

“What’s neat is that people are interested that we’re doing this, and they’re encouraging us,” Dana says.

All three agree that their virtual travel days may not be over. They’re not yet sure where they will “go” next, but another story seems likely. “It’s a real possibility that we travel together again,” Marylou says. Dana has another idea: “Maybe if other folks here read our story, they’d like to do one, too.”

If you’d like to read “Virtual Vacation: Assisi,” just ask a member of the Activities team to lend you a copy.