Beth Bornstein Dunnington
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A Circle Of Women

February 2, 2018

Something extraordinary at LAX today… (writing this on the plane). I was at the gate, waiting to get on my plane to Portland. Flights to two different cities were boarding on either side of the Portland fight. A toddler who looked to be eighteen or so months old was having a total meltdown, running between the seats, kicking and screaming, then lying on the ground, refusing to board the plane (which was not going to Portland). His young mom, who was clearly pregnant and traveling alone with her son, became completely overwhelmed… she couldn’t pick him up because he was so upset, he kept running away from her, then lying down on the ground, kicking and screaming again. The mother finally sat down on the floor and put her head in her hands, with her kid next to her still having a meltdown, and started crying.

Then, this gorgeous thing (I’m crying just writing this)… the women in the terminal, there must have been six or seven of us, not women who knew each other, approached and surrounded her and the little boy and we knelt down and formed a circle around them. I sang “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” to the little boy… one woman had an orange that she peeled, one woman had a little toy in her bag that she let the toddler play with, another woman gave the mom a bottle of water. Someone else helped the mom get the kid’s sippy cup out of her bag and give it to him. It was so gorgeous, there was no discussion and no one knew anyone else, but we were able to calm them both down, and she got her child on the plane.

Only women approached. After they went through the door we all went back to our separate seats and didn’t talk about it… we were strangers, gathering to solve something. It occurred to me that a circle of women, with a mission, can save the world.

I will never forget that moment.

Joy, Anyway

4/3/2020

 
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Today I experienced a small, extraordinary thing.

After an inspiring writers’ workshop, my head filled with swirling images from the stories I had just listened to... stories of color and light, of flying dragons and soaring yellow birds (and after spending ten to twelve hours a day these days in front of a computer between online workshops and acting students) I needed to move my body; to run out Into it. So, I did.

(I took my face mask with me.)

When I walk or run in my Hawai'i neighborhood and I pass someone on the street, there's usually a nod or an obligatory wave. Everyone's paying attention to their own breath, their own run, as they should be.

Today, in the late afternoon, on an empty street on the Big Island of Hawai'i, someone in the one of the houses was playing loud music. Decent loud music.
 
And there was a rainbow ring around the sun as three of us - each of us walking or running from different directions - converged on the street to look up.

It's a wide street and we were more than six feet apart, but we naturally pulled even further apart (yes, even outside). It was me, a young guy, and an older woman. I recognized both of them from the neighborhood although I had never spoken to either one of them and they didn't seem know each other.

Maybe we initially stopped because of the music or because there's so little human contact and the business-as-usual wave didn't seem like enough today. Maybe it really was the rainbow ring around the sun.
 
Or maybe it felt like something needed to be said about all this. About the world now.

But there were no words. What is there to say?

And for me, nothing said from ten feet apart on a street would have come close to the significance of the words that had been written and read and spoken back in the workshop I had just finished.

And here's the small pandemic miracle. 

With no words and all that distance, we started dancing in the street to that music. Really dancing. A teenage girl who must have seen us from her window came running out and then there were four of us, ten or more feet apart, on a street in Hawai'i, dancing.

The last time I had a meaningful experience with strangers it was two years ago in an airport and we didn't introduce ourselves. Today we told each other our names after the music stopped and the dance was over.

We didn't say, "see you later" or "let's do it again" because no one knows what later means now and even though we all live in this neighborhood, we don't know each other.

But in the middle of COVID 19, there was a moment of joy with people I'd never officially met but will certainly remember.

A small, extraordinary thing in the middle of a pandemic.
​
Here's to joy, anyway. During all this. 💕

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  • Home
  • Big Island Writers' Workshops/Galleries
    • Write Now Online
    • In-person Workshops
    • Writing Retreats
    • Writers' Portraits
    • Testimonials
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    • Class Gallery
  • Waking Up In Hawai'i Blog
  • Bios
    • Writing
    • Theatre
  • Calendar
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  • New on Facebook
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  • Performing the Story Gallery