Hi, it’s me, Steve, not some character. I happen to have an essay entitled Tender, and because that is also the title of the show, I thought it would make sense to read it to you now. It’s a short little essay, because time is money, right?
I like words, and I like words that hold in them a variety of meanings. It’s like they give you more bang for your buck than your usual preposition or article. In, on, around, a, The. Pretty much is limited, unless you are talking about a certain school south of here, and then I guess “The” is super loaded. But give me a word that can do it all–action, object, descriptor, literal, figurative, prosaic, poetic: That’s a word worth its weight in gold.
One of those types of words is “Tender.” At first, maybe one of two ideas pop into your head when you first hear it: tender as in gentle or tender as in sensitive to the touch. One can have a tender disposition or a bruise can be sensitive to the touch. But then when you think for a moment longer, other definitions might become apparent: kindness, bartender, legal tender, tenderloin, tendered registration, tlc, tender age, tender mercies, which is ironic because it really doesn’t mean the tender mercies of a kind and loving god but rather it’s used to refer to attention or treatment not in the best interests of its recipients.
As many of you know, I was a high school English and drama teacher in a previous life. One of my favorite texts to teach was Hamlet. In it, Polonious, the conniving counselor, is talking to his daughter Ophelia about her relationship with Hamlet. Ophelia has just told him that Hamlet has made “many tenders of his affection” to her.
Polonius responds:
Affection! Pooh, you speak like a green girl,
Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
Do you believe his “tenders,” as you call them?
Ophelia responds:
I do not know, my lord, what I should think.
And then Polonius says (and I swear this is the end of this dialogue)
Marry, I’ll teach you. Think yourself a baby
That you have ta’en these tenders for true pay,
Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly,
Or—not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,
Running it thus—you’ll tender me a fool.
I don’t know if you were keeping count, but there are like four distinct “tenders” in there, plus all of the subtext and innuendos and implications. Wow. That’s a word working overtime. Polonius is mixing the idea of tender affections with legal tender. Then he tosses in a tender meaning having a baby.
But what sticks with me is the way that affection and commerce get intertwined. We could have a whole essay on the economics of love in Elizabethan England, but you didn’t come here for that, so let me cut to the chase.
I think the world needs a little more tenderness and a little less obsession with the other tenders. Except maybe tenderloin. I do like tenderloin.
When we look out at the world, though, it does feel like we are all a little tender, like a bruise. Every day it feels like something shows up in the headlines. Something that makes us go, ouch.
I could make a list of the things that have made me go ouch for the past few weeks, but that would just be like another punch to that sensitive spot.
So, what do we do? For me, it’s this. It’s cooking for people, it’s performing. It’s creating. It’s working with the wonderful people who have helped me create this. It’s making new connections and re-establishing old ones.
It’s riding on the edge of insanity–can I tell you I’m finishing this essay up right before the show?–to create something that will vanish in the night air.
Maybe tender is the night. (I’ve never read that book, if you have, tell me about it at the end of the show) And so we part and hope to connect again tenderly.