{Sticky:} Open Thank You to Tabrett Bethell
2nd January 2011
Anyone reading: This just starts abruptly as a train wreck...so.... It was the only way I could do it.
Tabrett, if by any chance in the universe you ever read this, I...will probably fall over (haha)...but--it's for a lot of people; this community, as well. It's for them; it's for you; it's for me.
Train wreck below.
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I realized I'm bi because: Tabrett, in the role of Cara, made it Okay.
I don't have flowery language for this.
I don't know how else to say it.
She took it seriously. She played it truly, and Real. My heart got into it. She was truly believable, as Cara, with having feelings for Leo, and she was believable (oh wow ever so) with her feelings in her relationship to Dahlia. And she was amazing conveying Cara's complicated feelings and relationship to Kahlan. Friendship feelings; looking up to her like a mentor after whom she could try to pattern a new identity {out of a shattered old one} feelings; love feelings. Gratitude, affection, loyalty, devotion...and (at least in my personal world) more.
[Who could not fall in love with the Mother Confessor Kahlan Amnell? So surely a lost and broken (and canonically bisexual) Mord'Sith, feeling all of the aforementioned in the person of a beautiful, compassionate, noble, brave and ass-kicky woman, would fall helplessly in love.]
Tabrett gave exquisite detail to all of these things. So fine. Her portrayal was just so fine. It tore at my heart, and carried it away.
And because she did all of that - because she gave this gift to me, of her exquisite understanding of and sensitivity to all of these feelings - all of these very complicated and hard, swimming, feelings - she helped me understand myself. I didn't just walk with her & travel through places that I've never been--she walked me through, sensitively, past so many places that I have been. With such gentleness, and respect.
I don't know if I can put it any better than that, so I dearly pray that makes sense to those who can get it. But especially to Tabrett. How I wish I could say or give these words to her in person. It's taken such a long time for me to get at them, inside. They've been sitting in here, tearing like razorblades and thumping at the insides of the walls of my chest.
I only wanted words.
Well, I just kind of decided I was done with them. Words, that is. They're not important. It's just saying it that's important. (Funny enough, the words followed. -I guess. If these are even making any sense, at all.)
I have to credit the producers & writers, too, for allowing all this. I am grateful to be living in the time I'm living in--even though it is not yet perfect--and not even just a short time ago in the past. Every time someone decides to be brave--to take risks, even if it threatens to push some people who need it a little out of their comfort zone--it makes life just that much more bearable, and frees hearts like mine a little more.
I'd never seen a positive example of a whole (well, Mord'Sith-whole), free, comfortable with themself (and accepted for it) bisexual adult on TV, before Cara in Legend of the Seeker. Perhaps they were around, somewhere - but, it was my first time. And it was just...huge. They just dealt with it so naturally; I can't express what kind of a relief that is, and what level of comfort it gives.
For that, then, to be played with all of her heart and sincerity, and that beautiful depth and sensitivity, by Tabrett...that just... no words. ♥
Tabrett, thank you, for taking on this role. I've been blessed because you were in it. There was no one more worthy, and I'm convinced it was so, so important. I know some of those days couldn't have been easy. Long hours, challenging conditions, costume that let in all the cold when it was chilly, yet absorbed all the heat and let none of it out when the sun was beating down and it was hot.... But if there was anything I could do to make up for all of that, for you, in return for the gratitude I feel for your gift to me, I would happily do it. Including each and every one of those days in that costume--to have what I have now. My heart is my own, now. My self feels whole. When I fall in love again, and she is a girl, I will be happy. And I will be glad to be happy. Do you know what I mean? You brought me a gift that helped me feel okay about it; no--to know that it is okay. And beautiful. Thank you for helping me see that it's beautiful.
You're beautiful, Tabrett.
ILU
-me