Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Annie Rainboth

Listen

For a few years I was in a Women’s group, called “Women in Transition” (really, who isn’t in Transition?) led by a delightful, brilliant woman named Lorraine. She was warm and funny, one of those people who sometimes seem slightly spacey, but she didn’t miss a thing.

My husband, Michael, fully supported me going to my group, saying, “I love group. You are so much nicer when you come home.”

We were all women, ages 30 to almost 70. Some were mothers, some single, some religious, we were a mix. Lots of similarities. Lots of differences.

These were most likely not people I would have come to know in my daily life. But here we were, these six women, bunched together in a small room, (back in the olden days) sharing our stories. And these were the big stories too, private, painful, hopeful and triumphant.

Laughter was frequent, and tears too. One session a woman sobbed so hard through part of her story, she couldn’t speak anymore. Just sort of melted in grief. A few times, someone would try and break in with some soothing word, but Lorraine told them to stop. “Just let her.”

Group is over. Last summer, while group was on hiatus, Lorraine died suddenly. I really, really miss group. So, I think about it a lot. And I realized that Lorraine, in her kindness and wisdom, was teaching us to listen to ourselves. Which is so obvious to me, now.

We needed to learn to listen to ourselves by listening to others. Maybe our minds or hearts or souls had been blurred with experiences or troubles or anxieties and we didn’t even know how to listen to our own selves. But in really listening- maybe almost absorbing -these stories, we were given a safe, sacred space to tell our own stories. It was a soft circle, this group, and we trusted each other, and we were trusted, and through it we learned to trust ourselves.

Oh, and that lady who sobbed her way through that session a few years ago? She’s doing much better now- ask Michael, who also still misses group, for the fringe benefit of a more centered wife.