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.

The Green Dot

3/1/2020

 
Picture
The rain drowns out a dream about rain, and then I'm awake at 3 a.m. in Hawai'i.

It's really something, how life will keep you up once you're awake. There's a book, a good one written by a friend, it sits on the nightstand next to the bed, but I know if I pick it up there's no shot at sleep. There are pieces waiting to be redlined for writers when it's really Sunday, because now it's in between Saturday and Sunday and editing is too much in the darker dark. That will shift at 5:00 a.m. when I usually begin to wrap myself around other people's words. An honor to be trusted with that, and something that requires some light.

On the right of this screen, a list of people in my life who are here on fb, the green dot announcing this - a cyberspace invitation of connection. I scan the list before the names shift as people move into their day in other places where the sun is already up, and the dream isn't as loud as the Waimea rain.

Their places: Boca Raton, Boston, Baltimore, Denver, NYC. San Francisco, Cape Cod, LA, Seattle, Ramsey NJ. That's the order of the people on the right. The first ten, anyway. 

Something about each of them... 

She's in Florida visiting her aging parents, navigating Alzheimer's and sadness.

She's sixty and getting married again. It was a surprise that he asked and she's both terrified and ecstatic.

She misses her person, gone twenty years now, and soon we'll write on the anniversary of her beloved best friend's birthday, remembering what it meant that she was here.

His wife beat cancer and they're going on a cruise to Alaska to celebrate the thing they didn't think they'd get to do together. She had a dream of Alaska and he surprised her with it.

She was raped and never told anyone until she wrote the story in the workshop and now she's advocating for others who were too afraid to speak up.

Her mother is turning 100 and she's pinching herself to have the great gift of that. 

She's an award-winning author, and her first book is still one of the best pieces of fiction I've ever read.
 
She's expecting her first child after years of trying. She's online, reading about what to expect. She, too, is pinching herself at her good fortune, at the dream of her daughter... the one she so wanted but didn't think she'd get to meet.

She taught me that elephants weep for a lost loved one. A story written in a recent writing room that stays with me, that also finds its way into my dreams, like the rain.

She's been sober for twenty years. A milestone she's celebrating, cheered on by those of us who love her.

The rain stopped. And just like that, the names have shifted. All the living we do while we can... all the stories we pull into our hard-beatings hearts.
​
Here's to all of it. 

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