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.

The Luck of the Fall

9/21/2019

 
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When you slide on water someone spilled as you make your way to baggage claim at the Houston airport, carrying a very heavy backpack with writing journals and a book and your new reusable water bottle and lots of other stuff, and you're going to land on that crazy-hard floor (it's impossible to not fall once you lose your balance) but you somehow process HOW you need to fall, which happens in a split second, and maybe all those long-ago stage combat classes actually stay with you for the rest of your life, and you fall well (that's how you perceive it, anyway, from the perspective of someone witnessing), if there's an art to falling (the art of the fall - something Rena Shapiro perfected years ago, terrifying random strangers in a semi-regular prank), and tonight, after falling like that, you're popping back up gracefully (sort of) -- feeling kinda magical, like Mary Poppins -- after going down on your ass in the middle of an airport in Texas with a computer in your bag.

The computer is in a military case, but still...

So yes, you feel like a klutz, but you also feel like a break dancer.

And no matter how tired you are at midnight when you find yourself lying on the ground at the Houston Airport, wondering if this is a metaphor for something you need to pay attention to, when you pop back up and you're bounding on to baggage claim... nothing broken in your backpack or your body... you realize it's a hurrah moment.

And you want to sing "I Could Have Danced All Night" (it does occur to you), but you don't.

Because everything bad that could have happened after going down hard at the airport didn't.

And a little gift is no little thing.

Here's to the random falls that don't take us out. And of course, we're not invincible, but sometimes we're just so very lucky.
 
And a little bit balletic. 🙃

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  • Home
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  • Waking Up In Hawai'i Blog
  • Bios
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  • Calendar
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  • Performing the Story Gallery