brain/heart/books

imprints nonetheless

My jaw might have been on the floor as my fellow intern, Nichole, and I listened raptly to her talk. Her recall verged on terrifying. She regaled me and Nichole with facts and tidbits from plays she’d read years ago. Plot points, character names, playwright details, and production details came spilling out of her. The information was at the ready it seemed, just under the surface. It wasn’t showy or trying-to-impress. It was shoptalk. After all we were two interns at a fancy theatre fundraising gala. We were lower status than the cater-waiters. Nothing to impress.

Her occupation was ‘dramaturg’ and few people outside of the world of theatre know what that is. Even people inside that world barely know what it is. The job is professional play reader. They handle the literary and research arm of putting up a production. They may help an artistic director find new works to produce. They may assist directors in researching a particular element of a period piece. They can help the design team with accuracy in world building. They can answer any question about the text from any department since they know the script inside and out. Basically they know everything about the words on the page and who wrote them.

As we sat and listened to her, I couldn’t help but wonder what that type of brain is like. Not only it’s physiology, the interplay of neurons and chemicals, but the experience of possessing a brain like that. The detailed nature of her memory was staggering. Sure it was her profession but nevertheless it was impressive. Her knowledge base was not only wide, it was deep. It was intimidating. She just knew so damn much theatre.

My brain decidedly didn’t/doesn’t work that way. I’ve played leading roles with pages-long monologues for months and couldn’t recite a single line of dialogue 48 hours after the show closed. I studied plays in college and the moment the semester was over, couldn’t recall a single character name. Unless it’s Shakespeare, I have trouble remembering playwrights’ names. Even beloved playwrights (hello Sarah Ruhl) will elude me. My knowledge is neither deep nor wide. It’s shallow and narrow.

My musician friend JB (the one I wrote about here) would sometimes joke, “Boo come talk to me when you know as much music as I’ve forgotten.” Taking a peak into that dramaturg’s brain gave me the same feeling. I knew that she’s probably forgotten more theatre than I’ll ever know. At the time, that knowledge made me uneasy. I felt some variation of shame or envy. Why am I such an idiot plebeian who can’t remember shit? Why isn’t my brain better? Why am I not smart?

Not to blame my childhood for this but I’m going to blame my childhood for this. I came from a family of readers. Both my parents sat up in bed, lamps on, reading for an hour or so every single night. My dad had a particularly insatiable appetite for books. Next to his side of the bed he’d have 6 or 7 books strewn about, spilling onto the floor. He was partial to British detective series, mysteries, and satire. According to my mom he never used a book mark. The man was reading 7 books at a time and never used a book mark!

My sisters, too, read quite a lot. They loved their Nancy Drew and Babysitters Club books. Meanwhile I was up in a tree, quite literally. I lived outdoors most of my childhood. My days were filled creating worlds out of sticks and broken exercise bikes. Books were boring. Practicing backyard gymnastics was not.

As the years went on I eventually came out of the tree. Not until my mid-to-late 20s did books finally find me. Slowly I began reading things that apparently everyone read. Some classics, some standard school texts, some Harry Potter. Over time I morphed into a reader. I was a person who read. Regularly and voluntarily.

What’s interesting to me now is that, for as much as I read, my reading is quite shallow and narrow. My recall after I finish a book is pathetic. Details about plot and character vanish almost instantaneously upon putting it down. Author names never stick. And to top it off, I’m slow. Books take me a long time to get through, even the “quick reads.”

This has been made abundantly clear to me through my book club. For the last 3 years I’ve gathered monthly with a group of serious (and I mean serious) readers. It was born out of a pandemic need for connection and continued to grow into something very special. We read everything - poetry, classics, contemporary novels, plays, memoirs, science books, nonfiction, short stories, 700-page books about the atomic bomb that was a physical impossibility for me to finish, and everything in between.

This group has read just about everything. Some months it’s difficult to find a book that no one has read yet. They are wickedly smart and collectively inhale books. Not only do they inhale them, they remember what was inside afterward!

Back in the day I would have been intimidated by this. I would have felt inferior at not having read Atlas Shrugged. I would have tried to posture myself as more well-read than I am. Instead I’m able to marvel at their brains. Perhaps that’s a byproduct of age. I stand in awe that I’ve built community with such intelligent, creative, and interesting people. I’ve expanded as a human because of them. My life is richer for it.

In addition to be older (and perhaps a little wiser), I’ve also changed how I measure a book’s ‘success.’ Details may never stick. But did the book take me on some kind of ride? Was I able to float down the river of its narrative? Did I feel things? Could I feel my inner life expanding or shifting? Was the writing good? How was my heart during the story? These are all questions that mean more to me than the who-what-where-when-how.

And that’s okay.

I may never have the brain of a dramaturg or master musician or book club aficionado. My literary mind won’t ever be especially deep or wide. But I’d like to think my heart will be. Story (capital S) passes through me but still leaves an imprint. It’s just happens to be more emotional than cerebral.

And since brain people need heart people, and heart people need brain people I suppose that’s a good thing.

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Speaking of books, you can check out my bookshop wishlist here!

Ya know…

If you want to buy me any books.