Alone Together: Jani Lauzon

This week, Alone Together is written by the incredible multidisciplinary artist Jani Lauzon. We are fortunate to have worked with Jani for a number of years on the development and creation of Prophecy Fog. This meditative, solo show (co-produced by The Theatre Centre and Paper Canoe Projects in association with Nightswimming) began with Jani’s voyage into the Mojave Desert in search of Giant Rock, armed with the question: can a site still be sacred if it has been desecrated? The piece was nominated for three Dora Awards and we were thrilled to see Melissa Joakim win for Outstanding Scenic Design.

We are honoured Jani has shared the impact COVID has had on her, and her work, and hope you enjoy her writing (and her beadwork) as much as we did. Miigwech Jani.

A string of pink, light blue, dark blue, and red beading on top of a canvas fabric background
“When I am beading I am focused and deep in thought. I am contemplating the future, I am in prayer, and quieting my mind. And that, as it turns out, was exactly what I needed to be doing during this time.”

When COVID hit, my play I Call myself Princess was heading into its final week at The Globe Theatre to a nearly sold-out audience. I had just returned from the pushOFF festival in Vancouver and I was on my way to the Stratford Festival for the season late opener. I was finally enjoying the momentum I had worked hard to achieve after being a single parent for many years. And then it all stopped.

I am, by my own admission, a workaholic. My work is my lover. I respect it, feed it, treat it with care and it feeds me, energizes me, and fills me with joy. Without it, I dove deep into periods of intense loneliness. I threw myself into digitizing my VHS tapes, then my HI8 tapes. I started working on new demo reels (acting, puppeteering, voice). All good, but not deeply satisfying.

So I returned to beading. I made my first bracelet when I was in high school. It’s falling apart now but I was so proud that I was able to teach myself how to use a loom. Over the years I fell in and out of my relationship with beadwork, depending on how much time I had. My pride and joy is the moose hide coat I made, including the beadwork and the hand-sewn lacing. (I was trying to wean myself off of drug use but that’s another story.)

For years I had always wanted a pair of Frye boots but couldn’t afford them. So when I found a pair at the Salvation Army for $5, I didn’t care that they weren’t exactly the same; I had a plan. A plan I was too busy to execute. With time on my hands, I pulled them out of the back of my closet, dusted them off, stripped them, re-stained them and got to work on some appliqué beadwork. Happy to say they are almost finished.

Beadwork is an important part of Indigenous culture and economic resilience. The images used in designs tell stories and help document history. When I am beading I am focused and deep in thought. I am contemplating the future; I am in prayer, and quieting my mind. And that, as it turns out, was exactly what I needed to be doing during this time. I needed to keep my hands busy so that my mind could be in quiet reflection. Although the majority of my work has disappeared, I am deep in thought about how to bring my play Prophecy Fog to national and international audiences. I am contemplating how I will be finding a place in the world for my work while watching my beautiful daughter and her partner Charlie grow in their lives and relationship. I am looking forward to returning to the National Theatre School to enter the next phase of development on the devised work I started with the 1st year (now 2nd year) students. And I am deep in dream world conjuring up a positive future full of exquisite artistic expressions for us all.

 

— Jani Lauzon
Jani is a writer, performer, creator and mom to upcoming Indigenous artist Tara Sky.
Visit Paper Canoe Projects for more of Jani’s work.

Thank you for celebrating GivingTuesdayNow with us!

Your thoughtful words are helping all of us find a little more comfort and connection. Thank you for giving the gift of stories back to the community!

We loved hearing from you; and it’s inspired us to keep the conversation going. No matter how big or small, we want to know what’s putting a smile on your face! If you’d like to be featured on our weekly Alone Together series, send us a submission (500 words max.) to [email protected].

Missed us on Tuesday? Find us today on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to join the conversation.

Alone Together is a series of shared stories by The Theatre Centre. Over the next several weeks, our team is going to offer you some of our own personal joys, those things that nudge us, the arms that extend to us in the dark, those things that catch our hearts off guard. And we’d love to hear from you in return… what’s blowing your heart open these days?

Alone Together: Audrey Kwan

I was about 10 when I realized that the samosas at the store were different from the ones I knew. For the next 18 years, I would eat them at plenty of restaurants, cafes, and even out of questionable cardboard boxes sold by fundraising undergrads on campus. But none would ever stand a chance next to my grandma’s.

A stack of golden brown samosas on a dark blue plate with a pattern of white lines around the edges
“The comfort they give me isn’t just in taste but in the feeling of being taken care of — the feeling of being loved, and nourished, and provided for. That’s what I’ve been craving.”

Everyone’s grandma is the best cook. But my grandma is the best cook. My dad’s family is Chinese; and although he was born in Hong Kong, my grandparents got married and lived in India until 1956. After learning this a few years ago in a round of Kwan-family trivia, I was finally beginning to make sense of how special these samosas really are.

My grandma sent us lots of different food growing up, but I was always most excited when my dad came home with a bag full of her frozen samosas. Potatoes being my favourite vegetable, my love for them was only natural. I’m not sure when her samosas stopped appearing in our house, but I do know that it’s been at least a decade since I last ate one. And since quarantine started, I haven’t been able to stop craving them. There was no way around it— I had to make them myself.

Armed with a list of ingredients from my dad, I took to the kitchen. After guesstimating proportions for the filling and prepping the wrappers, I fumbled through the first samosa despite carefully following each step on YouTube. This shouldn’t come as a surprise but wrapping is hard. Over the hour and 15 minutes it took me to wrap only 17, I couldn’t stop thinking about the amount of time it must have taken my grandma to put together those seemingly bottomless bags. Not only for my family, but also for the 11 aunts and uncles, and 8 cousins who also lived in Vancouver.

A large white bowl with samosa filling and two spoons, and a small white and blue bowl, and a baking sheet with five pieces of triangular samosa wraps.

After several minutes of gingerly prodding my samosa babies in hot oil, they were ready. Taking that first bite was like coming home, jumping into a hug, and traveling back in time all at once. The golden triangles were crisp on the outside and packed with warm memories on the inside. In that moment, I realized that the comfort they give me isn’t just in taste, but in the feeling of being taken care of — the feeling of being loved, and nourished, and provided for. That’s what I’ve been craving.

 

My grandma’s English is limited and my Cantonese is, unfortunately, all but non-existent, but I’m hoping she’ll understand when I bring her a bag full of frozen samosas the next time I see her. Mine are not nearly as good as hers, but I guess I’ve got the time to practice.

— Audrey Kwan

Audrey is the Business & Development Coordinator at The Theatre Centre.

Alone Together is a series of shared stories by The Theatre Centre. Over the next several weeks, our team is going to offer you some of our own personal joys, those things that nudge us, the arms that extend to us in the dark, those things that catch our hearts off guard. And we’d love to hear from you in return… what’s blowing your heart open these days?

Alone Together: Tim Lindsay

It seemed obvious I’d write about how music is keeping me going. How many people have you seen on social media lately posting covers of formative albums (with NO EXPLANATION… why the heck is that a requirement)? These past weeks, however, I have been more concerned with teaching myself to sit comfortably in silence. A recent study found that many people would rather do anything — even electrocute themselves! — than be alone with their own thoughts for 15 minutes.

An infant laying down on a bed looking at the camera smiling
“In the little one’s brain, there is no other moment but this one, no world but the one we see.”

Part of my identity has always centred around whatever I put into my ears. Connecting to music does get me through the dark and uncomfortable times of dislocation and isolation. Admittedly, the record-collecting end of this habit gets ridiculous, but the rewards are great. I love the sense of lifting off the earth that so much music provides, and to “arrive without travelling”, as George Harrison wrote. This feeling is very private, and yet so strongly connected on an emotional level; for as long as I can remember, I’ve loved that sense of unseen inner motion.

Armed with a list of ingredients from my dad, I took to the kitchen. After guesstimating proportions for the filling and prepping the wrappers, I fumbled through the first samosa despite carefully following each step on YouTube. This shouldn’t come as a surprise but wrapping is hard. Over the hour and 15 minutes it took me to wrap only 17, I couldn’t stop thinking about the amount of time it must have taken my grandma to put together those seemingly bottomless bags. Not only for my family, but also for the 11 aunts and uncles, and 8 cousins who also lived in Vancouver.

G.I. Gurdjieff, the mystic philosopher, had a lot to say about music’s significance. Even in a single note, he felt we could all hear resonances within ourselves and from the wider world. Gurdjieff was convinced that every encounter with music held this promise of connection, but only rarely do we experience it on that level because our awareness is underdeveloped. Humans gather in groups for concerts and worship services, Gurdjieff said, not just to see and hear what is on offer but more primarily to “get human” with some other humans in a room. To see and be with an audience is a fundamental part of the musical event: a shared communion of exchange between the music, and its performers, and the listeners. Right now, our communion with music is stifled. To connect with it all by ourselves, we must first be at peace with silence.

I do not only mean disconnecting from “the attention economy”, as Jenny Odell has written about, but that is part of it. Immersing ourselves in the presence of silence, without distractions, we can better hear those inner and outer resonances. The private experience of being spirited away by a solo listening session, while hypnotic, can itself be a distraction from the present moment. We can be entranced by music’s spell, asleep to what is here and now.

Meanwhile, I am raising a newborn during this crisis, a very intense experience and uncharted waters for me. Being cut off from almost everything else, at least I have an opportunity to really enjoy these precious early moments with my family. Using this time for escape, to take off into another world, is in violent tension with the demands of the baby in the room with me. For, in the little one’s brain, there is no other moment but this one, no world but the one we see. Being here in the precious moments of quietude, I am learning how to listen again.

— Tim Lindsay

Tim Lindsay is the Technical Director at The Theatre Centre and works as a freelance sound designer.

Alone Together is a series of shared stories by The Theatre Centre. Over the next several weeks, our team is going to offer you some of our own personal joys, those things that nudge us, the arms that extend to us in the dark, those things that catch our hearts off guard. And we’d love to hear from you in return… what’s blowing your heart open these days?

Alone Together: Mimi Mok

I think I miss the TTC.

It’s weird because I really can’t say I have great memories of being on the TTC. The experience had been emotionally neutral, at best.

So I tried to figure out why.

A map of Toronto showing the stops along the TTC
“I miss the small daily gestures I perform to be one with a group of people I don’t know, the rituals that signal a collective order.”

I came across the work of archaeologist and anthropologist Monica L. Smith, a historian who does research on ancient cities and their household activities. In her view, cities are the first permanent places where people willingly live among strangers. Though cities are relatively new in our history, as a man-made construct it has enjoyed immense longevity, because cities never stop evolving.

Ancient cities, just like ours today, come alive from the interplay between People, Places, and the resultant Possibilities. Cities change because people are constantly adapting existing infrastructure to their needs, and new things are always built-in the footsteps of the old.

So what I miss is probably not the TTC per se. I’ve lived in cities all my life and for the first time, I have not had daily interactions with people I don’t know. I haven’t shared looks of resignation with strangers at a bus stop for a few weeks now. I haven’t been part of the pack on escalators during rush hour, walking past people who choose to stand still for a moment on the left. I miss the small daily gestures I perform to be one with a group of people I don’t know, the rituals that signal a collective order, however fleeting, is in place.

When my various roles in life were abruptly compressed and crammed into a one-bedroom apartment that is my personal space, it’s no longer obvious how my actions are still part of a bigger whole.

So I was relieved to find hope in Monica Smith’s work, for “if a city is never finished, then there is hope for making things better than what we inherited.” For as long as I’m a part of this city, it’s okay for me to stand still for a while, as long as the city doesn’t.

Cities: The First 6,000 Years” from The Long Now Foundation, Monica L. Smith
* Listen to the podcast
* Watch the video

— Mimi Mok

Mimi is the Business & Development Director at The Theatre Centre

Alone Together is a series of shared stories by The Theatre Centre. Over the next several weeks, our team is going to offer you some of our own personal joys, those things that nudge us, the arms that extend to us in the dark, those things that catch our hearts off guard. And we’d love to hear from you in return… what’s blowing your heart open these days?

Alone Together: Liza Paul

Simple pleasures are the things I find myself really savouring these days. Beyond every day music, some days sunshine, and laughter at any moment, food and drinks are the things that are getting me through. I am so fortunate as to be able to indulge almost every culinary whim that strikes, so I will share some with you in the hopes that maybe some of them will bring you happiness, too.

These days I try to pretend that I’m at a cottage and that’s why I don’t go anywhere. I am seized by random urges to make perfect snacks at odd moments: melba toast with fluffy cream cheese, a perfectly portioned sliver of smoked salmon, fresh lemon and a sprig of dill has been a big winner—satisfying on so many levels. The creamy, the crunchy, the sour, the savoury. gotDAMN that snack does it for me. Side note: melba toast is the bomb. I forgot about melba toast! I LOVE MELBA TOAST!

Also: strawberries. chocolate dipped and rolled in chopped walnuts and eaten while the chocolate is still warm. Just warm, though—I made the mistake of biting into one while the chocolate was hot and the burn on my tongue haunted me for days.

Also: ackee and saltfish and a golden piece of toast with salted butter and avocado on the side. bonus: if you skip the toast, it’s ketogenic! hahahahaha what even is that. this is the apocalypse. no one cares.

An orange cocktail with mint leaves on top, on a countertop with bottles in the background
“I’ve always been dedicated to cocktails. I just haven’t had so much time and opportunity to dedicate to the singular pursuit thereof”

And the cocktails! i don’t think i’ve ever been so dedicated to cocktails in my life. that’s a lie, actually. i’ve always been dedicated to cocktails. i just haven’t had so much time and opportunity to dedicate to the singular pursuit thereof and also been in the x-tendamix position of not needing to drive anywhere ever. if you are in the mood to make yourself something fancy and you happen to have the seven ingredients you’ll need on hand, the recipe for my current fave awaits you at the bottom of this essay. and if you are looking for recipes for any of my other favourite isolation food and drink, hit me up. i’ve got time to share.

bougie berry bevvie* (i just made that up. call it whatever you want)
one large sliced strawberry
juice of half a lemon
1.5 oz gin
.5 oz st. germain elderflower liqueur
splash of rose
soda water to top
ice

In a cocktail shaker, muddle the strawberry, add the lemon, the gin, the elderflower, the splash of rose and then some ice. Stir it. Taste it (do you like it? does it want more of anything? Add it! now is the time!). Strain it into a beautiful glass over ice (the type of beautiful glass you choose is entirely up to you—whatever lights you up), top with a splash of soda and get to sippin’.

*note: you’ll probably want to drink more than one (recommend!), but be aware that once you start drinking these, you might develop a hot foot and want to go somewhere. you can’t go anywhere. you’ll be drunk. you might get careless and practice unsafe covid hygiene. chill. listen to another song. keep your crease at home.

— Liza Paul

Liza is the Café/Bar Curator and Manager at The Theatre Centre

Alone Together is a series of shared stories by The Theatre Centre. Over the next several weeks, our team is going to offer you some of our own personal joys, those things that nudge us, the arms that extend to us in the dark, those things that catch our hearts off guard. And we’d love to hear from you in return… what’s blowing your heart open these days?

Alone Together: Rachel Penny

My mom has a beautiful habit, every spring and summer, of sharing her glee when things begin to turn green again. We’ll be driving or walking along somewhere and she’ll burst out “look at all this GREEN! We can finally exhale, spring has, in fact, returned!”. It’s a habit I’ve adopted—when the seasons turn and the world seems to be waking up I walk around feeling a concussive awe at the fact that it’s all happening again.

Every spring I worry that I’m going to miss it—that I won’t pay enough attention to the new growth happening all around me, and it will be over before I’ve been able to be a good witness. The long daily walks that have now become a part of my routine have eased this feeling a little. I’m grateful for the chance to really take in my neighbourhood’s beautiful gardens, to be tuned in to the subtle shifts in what’s growing. It’s been a balm to see all the greens (and yellows and blues and purples and reds) in my neighbours’ gardens, so lovingly tended, but the plant that has stopped me in my tracks (now, lately, always) is actually an evergreen, constant all winter.

The Golden Thread Cypress is a portal and a source: it generates its own light. The golden colour of the needles shifts with every new angle, un-pin-down-able. It is brimming with its own aliveness. I’m convinced that if you listened closely, you might hear a faint electric buzz coming from the tip of each needle. Taking time with this shrub opens something up in my chest and reminds me that I’m also rooted into the earth, permeable and part of an endless exchange of energy—of magic.

 

And when I pause, I listen more carefully—tuning in to the deep thrumming sound that’s out there, the energy of constant renewal and light that’s passing through us all.

— Rachel Penny

Rachel Penny is a performing arts producer currently participating in The Theatre Centre’s Creative Producer Training Program.

 

Alone Together is a series of shared stories by The Theatre Centre. Over the next several weeks, our team is going to offer you some of our own personal joys, those things that nudge us, the arms that extend to us in the dark, those things that catch our hearts off guard. And we’d love to hear from you in return… what’s blowing your heart open these days?

Alone Together: Kyle Purcell

I like to cook, but I am no baker. See exhibit A:

A hand holding a cookie, showing the top view and the bottom view of the cookie is burnt.

That was my attempt at chocolate chip cookies. I figured I couldn’t really screw those up. I was wrong. But I still ate them (all two dozen). So I’ve basically just stuck to cooking. However, there is one thing that I started baking for St. Patrick’s Day three or four years ago and I make it every year: Irish Soda Bread.

Close up of a round loaf for baked bread with a cross pattern scored into the top, on a wooden table
“Whether it’s at my grandparents’ table in their chilly kitchen or close to a fire in a cozy pub, the smell of soda bread makes me think of rolling green hills and good cheer.”

This is a truly special bread, it’s not only delicious, but it’s also very comforting. There is something about the taste, and more so the smell, that instantly transports me to Ireland. Whether it’s at my grandparents’ table in their chilly kitchen or close to a fire in a cozy pub, the smell of soda bread makes me think of rolling green hills and good cheer. If you’ve never had it, my writing will be insufficient to describe how truly great this bread can be. It’s dense, hearty, sweet, and delicious. Add Irish butter — rich, creamy, and inexplicably golden – and that’s all you need, all day, every day. Oh, and it’s really easy to make.

Since all this began, and I’ve been isolated at home, I’ve been baking this bread. The smell of fresh-baked bread filling my apartment feels like a warm (and delicious) blanket wrapping around me. So yes, now I am amongst the countless other home bakers who have bought up all the flour (though no yeast is required!) and started making bread at home. Sorry.

Here is a simple recipe from a great little site, The Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread. They take their bread seriously: “Flour, Salt, Baking Soda, Buttermilk. Anything else added makes it a Tea Cake!” In addition to a few recipes, there is a bit of history (including, get this! the oldest reference to a published soda bread recipe…can you even?!?). So you also get some great reading while your bread is baking and that sweet, sweet aroma fills the air.

— Kyle Purcell

Kyle Purcell is the Manager of Marketing and Communications at The Theatre Centre.

Alone Together is a series of shared stories by The Theatre Centre. Over the next several weeks, our team is going to offer you some of our own personal joys, those things that nudge us, the arms that extend to us in the dark, those things that catch our hearts off guard. And we’d love to hear from you in return… what’s blowing your heart open these days?

Alone Together: Tamara Jones

“I keep turning back to words to help me make sense of the world and my place in it. I ingest them restlessly as if I’m looking for something specific — some bit of truth, wisdom or validation.”

Illustration of person with dark hair holding their face, looking at a screen with a yellow sun, pink clouds, and purple sky.
Illustration by Charlotte Mei for The Vault

I spend a lot of time with words — words on screens, paper, filling silence, sprinting from earbud to eardrum. On any given day, I toggle between up to 20 internet browser tabs. My #WFH set-up consists of Slack, Hootsuite, Zoom and a chaotic “drafts” document, followed by a collection of essays and articles I methodically make my way through over the course of each week. My 132 GB iPhone is almost full, mostly of photos and podcasts, and my weekly usage stats are recklessly high. Books and magazines are stored all over my room underlined and dog-eared, with receipts, tickets, and sometimes the odd wrapper saving my place.

I’m not sure if I actually enjoy the process of reading or listening, but I keep turning back to words to help me make sense of the world and my place in it. I ingest them restlessly as if I’m looking for something specific — some bit of truth, wisdom or validation. My favourite tarot card reader Jessica Dore once wrote, “Myths and old stories can feel a bit like wise elders. They remind us what we are both too young in the Spirit to know and old enough in the Soul to understand.” I think the stories we tell each other have the power to do that too.

I’m reminded of it whenever I read bell hooks. I can pinpoint it in three passages of Ongoingness by Sarah Manguso. I feel it when I hear queer or racialized femme writers from my favourite local zines read their pieces aloud; it feels as if they’re speaking directly to me, but the crowd’s audible exhalations are a reminder that that part of me is also in all of us.

Each moment of resonance is well worth enduring the process of sifting through the noise and capital-c Content. So to all of you, I want to pass on the work of a few writers, speakers and storytellers who have reminded me of things my spirit forgot, which I continue to hold and turn to for clarity and comfort.

1. The God Phone by Leora Smith (Longreads)
2. A Malt by Lizzie Derksen (The Vault)*
3. John O’Donohue: The Inner Landscape of Beauty (The On Being Project)

*Use the code TAKECARE for one free story from The Vault. A Malt resonated with me so naturally, I recommend it, but I’ve read almost every story they’ve published and all are beautiful choices.

— Tamara Jones

Tamara Jones is a freelance writer and Marketing Coordinator at The Theatre Centre and SummerWorks.

Alone Together is a series of shared stories by The Theatre Centre. Over the next several weeks, our team is going to offer you some of our own personal joys, those things that nudge us, the arms that extend to us in the dark, those things that catch our hearts off guard. And we’d love to hear from you in return… what’s blowing your heart open these days?

Alone Together: Alexis Eastman

Faded photograph of a child floating in the corner of a swimming pool smiling at the camera.

“As my eyes rose above the top of the water it started to sunshower. I stood all the way up and reached my hands into the rain.”

 

Ever since I was 4 years old and my Dad threw me screaming and crying into a backyard pool, I have loved to swim.

A beloved frenemy of mine who I worked with as a shopgirl once invited me over to ask me a series of questions that she had come up with and self-determined as the only ~true~ way to get to know someone. “Ask someone you’re shagging even one of these questions, you’ll be blown away,” she bragged. Anyway, one of these q’s was something like “What’s one thing you would do forever if, like, nothing mattered?” Instantly I said, swim. I would swim.

On our honeymoon, my husband (who I was indeed shagging) and I went to an island. I was too tired to do much touring and spent most of my first days laying by the beach, longing to be in the water. My post-wedding exhaustion was lingering as endless nausea and the waves made me feel like I was going to hurl. On the third day, desperate for the ocean, I took a Gravol for breakfast and waded out as the dimenhydrinate took over (sorry Mom!). My stomach settled and my sleepy mind emptied. I floated and fell into twilight sleep, the salt steadfastly holding me up. My husband tells this story and says I had floated out so far I was only a speck to him. Blue all around me, I was only a speck to me too.

Several years later we rented a shack by a river for our anniversary as, upon reflection, we like to celebrate with increased proximity to bodies of water. Hazy with late afternoon sun, I got up from a nap on the dock and dove in. As my eyes rose above the top of the water it started to sunshower. I stood all the way up and reached my hands into the rain. I thought about yelling to wake him so he wouldn’t miss it but waited for a moment. Instead, slowly swimming up and down the river, hovering at the top of the water so I couldn’t tell what was skin, what was river, what was rain.

I have a bath almost every day, hot, with Epsom salts if I can. There, I close my eyes and let the salt buoy my hands to the surface, feeling the tension of the water gently hold and then break way to my skin. I am in the pool, the ocean, the river, I am swimming. Swimming, like if nothing mattered.

Sent from my bathtub.

Alexis Eastman is a producer at The Theatre Centre.

Alone Together is a series of shared stories by The Theatre Centre. Over the next several weeks, our team is going to offer you some of our own personal joys, those things that nudge us, the arms that extend to us in the dark, those things that catch our hearts off guard. And we’d love to hear from you in return… what’s blowing your heart open these days?

Alone Together: Aislinn Rose

“Hope is this kind of arm you extend into the dark on behalf of others… all the privilege that I have and what’s working out for me… how dare I be hopeless.”

In his 2019 interview for The On Being Project, writer, photographer, and art historian Teju Cole talks about the Inuit word qarrtsiluni, which he translates as “sitting in the dark together, waiting for something to happen”.

It’s an incredible interview, offering a meditation on the art that helps us, that “jolts us awake”. The work that isn’t written for the day, but for the middle of the night. The value of silence and concentration, “how do you help other people concentrate?”.

The behind view of an audience of people sitting in rows of chairs in front of two speakers on a stage with two microphones.
Image by Bethany Birnie

And he talks about hope.

“Hope is this kind of arm you extend into the dark on behalf of others… all the privilege that I have and what’s working out for me… how dare I be hopeless.”

As artists, creators, cultural workers, and audience members, we spend a lot of time sitting together in the dark waiting for something to happen. And even now, with all our theatres shuttered, our cultural spaces closed to our communities, I find we are in that same space. We are now alone, together, in the dark, waiting for something to happen.

Toward the end of the interview, which I hope you’ll take the time to enjoy, Cole acknowledges the grim view that “we’re not here for a long time, and LOL no one cares”. But he also talks about that moment within our favourite song, or that first bite into the perfectly seasoned (and particularly peppered) goat biryani, or that long walk, or that piece of art… those fleeting moments that offer you a reminder that, “hey, this is why you’re alive”.

Cole quotes Seamus Heaney’s poem Postcript, which I offer the end of here:

Useless to think you’ll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

Over the next several weeks, our team at The Theatre Centre is going to offer you some of our own personal joys, those things that nudge us, the arms that extend to us in the dark, those things that catch our hearts off guard. And we’d love to hear from you in return… what’s blowing your heart open these days?

— Aislinn Rose

Listen to Teju’s interview.

Alone Together is a series of shared stories by The Theatre Centre. Over the next several weeks, our team is going to offer you some of our own personal joys, those things that nudge us, the arms that extend to us in the dark, those things that catch our hearts off guard. And we’d love to hear from you in return… what’s blowing your heart open these days?