Beth Bornstein Dunnington
  • Home
  • Big Island Writers' Workshops/Galleries
    • Write Now Online
    • In-person Workshops
    • Writing Retreats
    • Writers' Portraits
    • Testimonials
  • Theatre
    • Acting Gallery
    • Directing Gallery
    • Class Gallery
  • Waking Up In Hawai'i Blog
  • Bios
    • Writing
    • Theatre
  • Calendar
  • Contact
  • New on Facebook
  • Performing The Story
  • Performing the Story Gallery
Picture
Picture
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.

One Life

1/17/2020

 
Picture

Joy is a precious commodity.

And time, which sometimes feels endless, isn't at all endless.

My heart breaks for a woman I know – someone I care about who wrote today that she feels she "missed her life." She's at the end of the journey and she doesn't know how she didn't get the book written, didn't (dot, dot, dot). There's a whole list of what she meant to do but didn't get to. She couldn't figure it out, she ran out of time, she didn't know how to start, how to continue, where to go, she was busy with day-to-day things, etc. I know how hard that was for her to write, but what actually happened, or didn't happen, has to be harder. Because time isn't endless.

And one life.

Regret is useless, really, because we did what we did in our lifetime. But here we are in the present, and time IS limited, so now is it. Now is it. It's usually the minutia that gets in the way. All the things that eat up a day, a year. Things we can't remember after we did them because they weren't significant.

My mission with both facilitating the writing and the theater work has been to get the work on its feet. Find your way into a room where you'll find the stories, where you'll read the piece, perform the song, finish the play / book, stand on a stage and tell your story, get the words out in the world. Risk it. There are a good number of people facilitating this work. We all get to it differently, but we get to it. Go with what speaks to you.

I don't want to wake up and have missed the thing, and I don't want you to miss it. To write that you missed your life is a tragic statement.

I wish I could wind the clock back for this woman, but I can't. It crushed me, reading that. But it's her truth.

So let's do the thing while we can. Let's just do it, my peeps.
 
There's only now.

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