The Tempest

[vaneramos]

August 10: Marian and Brenna in Old Montreal


[TORONTO] Tonight there is nothing in the world bigger than the empty seats in the car where questions, conversations and laughter echo as I follow the highway alone. My life is a patchwork of roads followed. I’m always driving away.

I’ve run away from many things, never my children, yet they seem like the ones I must leave behind most often. Parenthood is a continual letting-go, one of life’s hardest lessons.

Yesterday we saw The Tempest performed in Stratford. It is William Hutt’s farewell season, one of the world’s great living Prosperos asking his audience to finally release him. And once more tenderly setting his Miranda free.

Marian loved the play. “It’s about being human,” she said. Brilliant.

Jacob James was breathtaking as Ariel, the story’s moral centre, thirsting after the rough passions of his human companions, at the same time flitting toward the promise of freedom from burdens.

The weight of love and compassion is a gift. To let another person go is to affirm life. Every September I must set free my own Mirandas and myself, like Ariel, back “to the elements.” I return to ethereal grownup entertainments with pockets bankrupt but chest bursting, emotions buffeting like the storm.

Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;
And my ending is despair
Unless I be relieved by prayer. . .