Observables #18
on getting used to things (or not), Sex Education, and a profound new memoir
Playwright and Poet Shannon Bramer is my wonderful guest here on Observables this week. I hope you enjoy her voice as much as I do.
We are wearing clothes that are too tight because I like my clothes even if they don't fit right now and I am hoping to fit into them again. We are also wearing new glasses that aren't working out for me and I'm wondering if I have the guts to tell the optician that I want different lenses, maybe even different frames.
That I don't want to get used to how the bifocals work. That in general it's a bad idea for me to get used to things. Getting used to something is often bullshit. It's not the same thing as acceptance. Acceptance means that you've made peace with something difficult, you accept it, you can even hold it close to you; you can move on. Getting used to something means the discomfort may go on and on; and you're going around in your tight clothing forever because you are used to that feeling of tightness and you don't want to change it--you'd rather live with the discomfort, probably because you don't want to face the truth of what you'd have to do to change. Because you're used to it. So, we are sorting this out: buy some new clothes or start going to the gym again which also causes a completely different type of discomfort to settle in.
We are also wearing lots of make-up and amazing earrings by Mimi, who is a dazzling human being that I adore.
We are reading our writer friends, many of whom have new books out this fall. I love memoirs and poetic hybrid essay/memoir forms (Poetry is Queer by Kirby is a brilliant new example, hot off the press in October); I just finished local author Mary Breen's Any Kind of Luck at All, which sketches scenes from a life darkened by four generations of mental illness and addiction and culminates with the devasting loss of her 27-year-old daughter due to opioid poisoning. This book is a heartbreaking and mind-expanding read for so many reasons, as Mary has a gift for combining honesty and humour in her writing that makes even the most difficult memories and moments absorbable. It's a brave, cathartic, deeply compassionate book, one that will resonate with anyone who has experienced mental illness, familial chaos, profound loss and/or just a run of relentless and painful bad luck. It also illuminates the severity of the opioid crisis while offering its readers a real door to understanding and hope. I will give it to my teenage daughter to read.
We are watching Sex Education on Netflix because oh my goodness how exquisite are Gillian Anderson and the whole cast?!
It's been quite a long time since I've had so many crushes at once. I fear I am developing real feelings for Mikael Persbrandt and thanks to Rosa Dias (the brilliant costume designer) I know that I need more colour, more velvet, in my life. The friendship between Otis and Eric makes my heart burst in every scene and is emblematic of how tenderly all the relationships on this show are explored. This is a show that depicts middle-aged adults and teenagers without leaning on superficiality; every touching and hilarious dilemma is presented with depth. Finally, the glorious setting on the Caerleon Campus in North Wales makes every frame look like a luscious, arousing (yes, I wrote that!) painting of paradise. For a show that deals with sexual mishaps, conundrums and the complexities of true intimacy it's not overly gratuitous--instead it's playful and artful and beautiful to watch.
Shannon Bramer is a poet and playwright who lives in Toronto. Her most recent book is a collection of absurd plays. Rebecca Davey was in one of those plays!
And don’t forget to check out this week’s episode of Sister On! We are calling it “Loss and Found.”