MASON JARS

Mason jars. That’s what we were talking about. Whether a Mason jar was a Mason jar if it wasn’t a name brand Mason jar, or whether a Mason jar could be any old jar as long as it possessed a lid and glass of a similar design. As much as that sentence was a pain to even think about, I quite enjoy those types of conversations. I was sitting on the surprisingly comfortable and wide armrest of a couch talking to some friends in the kitchen, maybe a metre or so away.
“I believe it has to be name brand Mason.” Someone had joined the conversation from the table next to me. They were undoubtedly knee deep in a conversation about something similarly irrelevant. I’m racking my brain for what it was but I’m sure it must’ve been Magic the Gathering or what costume to wear for a halloween party. Both topics of which I know very little.
This is the type of conversations most of the people in my theatre group had at our parties, not surprising though. A collection of mostly former English students performing Shakespeare plays in Denmark, where hardly anyone has a grasp on that sort of English, isn’t necessarily a great recipe for success I’d say; but it has been going for over 30 years, so who am I to make statements about that.

It was a startup party for my seventh season with the company and even though I hadn’t seen most of these people since we left the theatre in April, the atmosphere and discussions were still largely the same.
After finishing my sixth season earlier in the year, I was, as per usual, sick with a fever and quite happy to return to a certain form of normality. I always got sick at the end of playing. The last performance would always be accompanied by a sore throat, a runny nose, and over acting to a point of parody, but in any case, just as exciting as the other nights.
Having to play Orsino in Twelfth Night was quite a challenge for an actor like myself. I didn’t think that passing the age of twenty-five meant I was now destined to be playing old dukes and such, but Orsino seemed like a happy middle ground between ‘pretentious cry baby’ and ‘Old Duke of Illyria’. Having completed the week’s worth of performances and packing up the theatre, I was ready to let myself lie in bed a while longer than usual, and hopefully have my body clear up my sinuses in the meantime.
The half a year break that naturally happened with the company started that day in early April and wouldn’t end till the backend of September. I thought to myself that picking up writing again might be a nice idea. I was working on a musical at the time and had hit a bit of a wall, and a little writing practice never hurt. And so the musical was shelved for a moment and book writing resumed for the first time, since I was about fifteen.
And write I did. For about a few months I was working on a crime novel about a preppy English detective solving a murder at a theatre; the sort of thing my brain would mistakenly say would surely happen to me one day. As the weeks and months passed, we were slowly approaching the end of September and aside from my partner, and my close family and friends, I had not attended a social gathering of more than six people for about four or five months. Then it happened. What I thought to be a wonderful invitation appeared in my inbox. A party with the company as a start to the new season. Marvellous, I thought to myself. I love these people, surely this would be a great time. My brain had unfortunately forgotten to inform me that those many months of being a shut-in had made social interactions of that size a great inconvenience.

“So is a Mason jar just any jar with a lid?” someone asked, and out came my phone. I found a satisfactory answer to the question after skimming an article on the matter. I then shared with the group that a Mason jar was once patented but is not anymore, so technically anyone could make Mason jars of similar design to the original. I am, however, unsure of whether or not that is actually the truth.
I usually try my best not to look up the answers to these sorts of discussions. I enjoy the attacks from both battlements, but this time my clock was ticking, and I needed a smoke soon. I hit the nail on the head of the conversation, grabbed the only other smoker attending the party and rushed for the door outside. There, I found myself in the cool October wind, smoking a Marlboro red, drinking a beer and being the most definitive definition of a right geezer; irony might occur.

Earlier in the day, I'd been excited for a party and had dressed up as nicely as seemed appropriate. My partner, who is also a part of the company, was ill and was both not in the mood or in physical capability of attending. I believe, I resented them a little for it. I have a tendency to do that. Especially since I was already feeling the anxiety well up in me. So alone I went, and it was there at the bus stop, a tote bag full of beer and a cigarette in my hand, that everything started feeling off. My heart was beating fast, and I was all in all feeling rather uncomfortable. I possess, to my great dismay, a load of anxiety regarding my mental and physical health so a spiralling inner conversation about mortality and the slow decline of my mental health should be just what a person in my place needed. Luckily, before I could descend any further into the unending abyss of mental self-harm, a bus arrived to take me to the party and slowly but surely the panic settled to just a little below ‘genuine discomfort’.

But in that moment, outside the boundaries of the party with my smoking companion, I found a sense of calmness and familiarity overtake me. The smoke was nice and a relaxing conversation with a great friend was also very much appreciated. So, as I rolled the ember of the bud of my smoke, got back inside and ascertained that Mason jars were no longer being mentioned, I felt I was slowly but surely back. Back to pursue another season of amateur acting filled with alcohol, too many cigarettes and surely more conversations of whether or not a jar was indeed a jar.