Creating a Circle
On Connecting and Healing, Together
January 21, 2016: Over the past several weeks, I’ve dealt with some powerful and unexpected triggers that have made me relive and re-feel the most traumatic experiences of my life in ways I could have never anticipated. Everything came to an apex today and, thankfully, was resolved, but not without a lot of pain and a lot of fear. Emotionally, physically, and mentally drained, I wanted to give in to the part of myself that desired only to end my day by going home and going to bed early, but instead, I dragged myself to Harlem to hear Gloria Steinem speak about her work and one of her great mentors, Flo Kennedy, because I knew that being around people who believe in a better world and believe that injustice is not inevitable would be a balm to my soul.
I also trusted in the healing nature of Gloria’s calming demeanor and in her ability to create what she refers to, when speaking and in her writing, as a circle rather than a pyramid. We went wrong, she says, when we began to prioritize ranking rather than connecting with each other. We would do well to talk within circles, rather than in hierarchies.
After the event, I joined two friends in the book-signing line but felt the need to explain why I didn’t have a copy to be signed. “Gloria, I had the pleasure of meeting you at BAM,” I told her, “so I’m just serving as a photographer for my friends tonight.” She smiled and reflected on how great a night she had at BAM, how much the layout of the venue contributed to a conversation in which she could speak with attendees, rather than to them. “You certainly succeeded in creating a circle,” I said.
During the talk tonight, a young woman asked how she could find her voice. “Don’t worry about what you should do. Do whatever you can,” Gloria responded. She meant this as a warning against letting our idealism and perfectionism immobilize us, silence our voices, but she also went on to explain that acting in the ways we can is so important because we never know exactly what effect our actions may have on someone’s life. In My Life on the Road, Gloria puts it another way:
“In truth, we don’t know which of our acts in the present will shape the future. But we have to behave as if everything we do matters. Because it might.”
In recent days, doing whatever I could has felt a lot like taking one step and then another and another, acts of self-preservation and self-care. But in that space, I have seen others doing whatever they could and not knowing just how much it mattered: a stranger who held so much of my wellbeing in her hands today and chose to show empathy and kindness; my friends Nicole and Liner, who have been selfless in their giving of support; my canine companion, Ollie, who, sensing my anxiety, has been especially generous with his cuddles; and my husband, Teo, who has been who he always is, an embodiment of love. These acts have buoyed me with the strength to keep working toward doing whatever I can, in my own small way.
For the past couple weeks, I have felt myself to be at the bottom of a hierarchy that tramples the rights of survivors — their very selves. But as we waited to see Gloria tonight, my friend Abby said that she had always thought of me as a quiet force, as someone who opened spaces, rather than closed them. If only she could have known then how much it mattered to hear that I have helped to create a circle in times when I have felt I could do the least of all.
