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.

Ten Years Later

1/16/2019

 
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Today I'm posting ten-year before-and-after profile pictures because they're a survival story, and I want people dealing with cancer to see this.
 
To see the woman standing behind the Ohia post that holds up her Hawai'i home, and maybe the post is holding her up too because she just had surgery, five thousand miles away from this place, and returned home changed, now a "survivor.”
 
And she's so grateful but the truth is, this early on, only weeks later, she has no idea if she'll actually survive, and she's so tired and even fragile, and it's her fifteen-year-old daughter taking the picture so she's trying to just be present and awake but she doesn't know who she is now or what life, if there will be life, will bring.
 
And she doesn't think in terms of ten years. She can't in that moment.
 
Ten years later her friend takes her profile picture and puts sparkles on it and sends it back to her and she uses it as her new profile picture because it's full of color and there's ink on her finger, which tells part of her story, and she's lived long enough to need reading glasses, and there, on her left wrist, are bracelets from Peru that tell the story of the documentary film she co-wrote with her best friend, who was there, ten years earlier, when she woke up in that Boston hospital bed.
 
And she knows she did exactly what she promised herself she would do on that once-upon-a-time metal table... right after she woke up from surgery in excruciating pain, struggling to breathe, and suddenly realizing she would have to relearn to breathe with less air... she FULLY LIVED.
 
Ten years later. 

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  • 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