It is our second day of tech rehearsals for my play Peanut Butter and Blueberries and a strange feeling has settled in the room. The theatre walls and stage door are thick, but not thick enough to keep out the reality of racist and Islamophobic violence on our streets over the past week and a half. On the set of a story about two young Muslims, with a creative team of mainly Muslims and people of colour, the line between real and surreal suddenly feels more blurred.
Given the heightened violence this month, part of me questions if a love story is the right story to tell right now, but another part of me is adamant that it is. In the play, Hafsah and Bilal are contending with precisely the sorts of questions I, and so many others, have found themselves sitting with. In times of increased racism and the accompanying hypervisibility that comes with it, loving others often feels a vulnerable thing to do. The more we love and the more people we choose to love, the more we expose ourselves to the potential of pain as our worry must widen its wings and our concern extends beyond what we can actually control.
