🪵 Sitting on this branch, nature taught me today that falling isn't the end of the story—it’s just the ground work for how I choose to rise.

On Friday, 28 November, a young, striking woman posted a few photos to her public Instagram after the Macbeth performance, one of them featuring her beaming beside Sam.

Sam is smiling too. Perhaps trying to rise above post-performance fatigue, he musters a polished grin and those very even, very white teeth (new veneers, perhaps?).

The photo made the rounds on several Instagram accounts, and I wouldn’t have given it a second thought if not for a post that flickered past me on Tumblr yesterday.

I won’t link it, its origin lies on The Other Side.

But I will show you three comments. A gentle gradient of interpretive enthusiasm: from mildly snarky ⬇️⬇️⬇️

⬇️⬇️⬇️ by moderately cringe…

to outright dramatic ⬇️⬇️⬇️

.

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I must confess: every time this sinks in, I get that unpleasant little shiver down my spine. While our side, armed with an entire litany of moral reservations about Sam, still tends to regard him as a “one-woman man,” the Other Side… well.

Those ladies (and I have little doubt they’re solidly members of the XX contingent) truly seem to imagine S. as a somewhat overripe satyr, incapable of restraining the metaphorical drool the moment he catches sight of a pair of youthful, aesthetically pleasing curves.

In their minds, his bedroom door swings open and shut for every new young woman with enough frequency to threaten coastal stability (possibly triggering tsunami).

I’ll leave it there. No need to elaborate.

You know exactly what I mean.

Isn’t this the crowning achievement of a truly disastrous PR strategy? A Shakespearean actor saddled with the reputation of a street-corner Casanova. A little tragic. Honestly, rather sad. .

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And here’s the Instagram photo that caused all the fuss:

. . .