Dorothy Dittrich reflects on the power of connection and community in the healing process
When Big Healing Comes in Small Ways is a personal essay by Dorothy Dittrich
When Big Healing Comes in Small Ways is an original essay by Dorothy Dittrich. It is part of Healing, a special series of new, original writing featuring work by the English-language winners of the 2022 Governor General's Literary Awards, presented in partnership with the Canada Council for the Arts. Read more works from Healing here.
A day or so ago, I was on the phone with an old friend. The kind of friend you can be completely yourself with. You know each other's history because you were there — you know the battles, the victories, the loves and losses and you know the vulnerabilities. My friend was distressed over something small, a minor incident.
"It was nothing," she said.
But it had elicited an enormous reaction. She was torn as she spoke, swinging between calm logic, confusion and anger. She felt petty and embarrassed, her reaction was too extreme but it was also real and she wanted an answer, a solution, validation. Was she out of line? Was she too awful to be so upset?
A day or so ago, I was on the phone with an old friend. The kind of friend you can be completely yourself with.
When she finished her "rant" — her word not mine — she said, "What do you think?"
I paused, took a deep breath and said, "Well —"
I didn't get any further because she started to laugh. And then I started laughing.
Two old friends in accord.
When our laughter finally subsided, she said, "That was healing." And then we talked, pulling the incident apart, dissecting and studying it like it was the most serious of things – because maybe it was.
We knew it wasn't really the incident, of course, it was her reaction, and as we talked, laughter and ease entered and other questions like, "What just happened? Why did I just lose my mind? Where did I go?" could be asked.
Maybe by studying our reactions we can find healing. My friend did. Our conversation sparked a memory of something unrelated, something ancient, hurtful and unseen, avoided and buried somewhere in the mind and body and it bubbled up with laughter and the kind of distance that comes with time.
We hung up thanking each other for the conversation, the understanding and the laughter, telling each other how much better we felt. But why did I feel better? It was her story, her wound that had healed.
Maybe by studying our reactions we can find healing. My friend did.
When I wrote the play The Piano Teacher I was working with the subject of grief — a particularly devastating wound that can linger and become so entrenched, it becomes part of everyday life — a new shade, a new tint in the lens — a pain so deep and dull that it begins to take away self-expression. That was the dilemma of one of the characters.
How does that kind of pain ever heal? Is it possible? And what would it look like?
She was in trouble and more time to heal, was not the answer. She had lingered too long in the wound and in isolation, now action, moving through, facing the pain would be the needed roadmap to healing. Along with friendship, connection and laughter — all warming remedies for a frozen, broken heart.
The word healing seems to be ever present in our culture and for good reason. We need to heal. The question is how?
The other day with my friend, a minor incident triggered a memory that turned out to be the key to a deeper healing — healing that may have been lost without someone to tell the story to. I felt better for hearing it and witnessing her honesty.
How does that kind of pain ever heal? Is it possible? And what would it look like?
Perhaps something in me healed as well by being with her in that moment.
In the early years of the AIDS pandemic two words in the form of an equation were spray painted on sidewalks all over New York City. The equation was "Silence = Death".
My friend and I lived through that time, experiencing the loss of friends, community — to some degree our culture. The impact of seeing that equation, was for me, profound.
Speak.
Use your voice.
Even now it helps me talk about difficult things.
Like grief.
I think sometimes, about how our community began healing. I believe one way was theatre. When we started to see our stories on stage and hear our voices we began grieving collectively, healing collectively.
There are experts on healing, I'm not one of them. However, my life has taught me that healing rarely happens in isolation, that we don't know what little moment unplanned, will be healing, and that sometimes healing happens in a crowded theatre, witnessing a character experience pain we have felt, but may not have been able to talk about.
The inspiration
Dorothy Dittrich: "The subject of healing is vast. The inspiration for this piece came about as I pondered the many small moments and small daily steps I have taken in my life to heal. I always want something big, magical and final, but the truth is, my healing has come with work, one day at a time, and often in surprising, unexpected ways. I find the small moments that live inside vast ideas — like healing — incredibly interesting. As they say, it's the little pieces that make up the whole."
About Dorothy Dittrich
Dorothy Dittrich is a playwright, sound designer and composer who currently lives in Vancouver. Her other plays include The Dissociates, Lesser Demons, Two Part Invention and If the Moon Fall. She also created the musical When We Were Singing.
Her drama work The Piano Teacher: A Healing Key won the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for drama.
About the series Healing
CBC Books asked the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award winners to contribute an original piece of writing on the theme of healing. When Big Healing Comes in Small Ways was Dorothy Dittrich's contribution to the series.
- Na-naan-dah-wih-i-way by Eli Baxter
- This Story is Against Resilience, Supports Screaming As Needed by Jen Ferguson
- Lilly in the Wintertime by Sheila Heti
- Some Notes on the Requirement of Hope by Naseem Hrab
- The Invisible Cage by Nahid Kazemi
- Circumference by Annick MacAskill
- Possessions by Judith Weisz Woodsworth
