Safe Spaces

Where Can I Return to Myself?

A few weeks ago, my journaling group wrote about finding our way back to ourselves. When I’m busy, and other people’s expectations are loud, it is easy for me to get caught up in activity and lose myself. I journaled about the luxury of unscheduled time and the opportunity to choose activities that feel like home. I wrote about curating my scheduled time, trying to prevent others’ priorities from overwhelming my own.

But then our journaling guide, Randon, added a sub-prompt that opened up a whole new line of thinking (as she so often does). How do physical places and things help us find our way back to ourselves? I started with a list of places where I feel most like myself - home, Prairie Lights, a classroom, Joe’s Place, New Buffalo, the Ped Mall.

I’ve written about Iowa City’s Ped Mall before. Over the years, I took walks there when the stress of graduate school became too much. I’ve watched my kids play on the playground outside the Iowa City Public Library (and learned that Ben tested the new equipment's safety one Saturday night when he was an undergrad). I’ve wandered through art festival booths and listened to free concerts. I’ve let Annie smell all of the Saturday night smells that linger on a Sunday morning. I’ve caught more Pokémon than I can count.

But just a few hours before our journaling group began that day, I had woken up to a HawkAlert at 1:51 am. “Gunshots COLLEGE and CLINTON ST. Avoid the area.”

Groggily, I scanned the map in my head. If you head west on College Street, it technically ends before reaching Clinton. For two blocks, only pedestrians are allowed. The gunshots occurred on the Ped Mall just before bar close.

I later learned that a fight had broken out on the Ped Mall, just when last call sent students out into the spring air. Shots were fired into the crowd. Three University of Iowa students and two other people were shot. They were bystanders, pulled away from an evening out when bullets pierced their skin. Luckily, there were no fatalities. Even so, this event shook me.

What happens when our favorite places become a little less safe? I am never on the Ped Mall at bar close, but I dream of having a studio apartment at the Vetro, which overlooks the Ped Mall. When sleep will not come, I can imagine myself wandering down to street level, allowing the anxiety that sits heavily on my chest to float away. The reminder that nowhere is completely safe doesn’t shatter this dream, but tinges it with reality.

This is a reality that many people live in almost constantly. I recently spoke with a management scholar who is researching perceptions of workplace safety among members of the LGBTQ+ community. Many individuals in this study described themselves as safe, even when they faced significant identity challenges or harassment. Perhaps defining their reality as safe is a defense mechanism, a strategy that allows them to continue to show up. Perhaps they feel relatively safe, compared to others they know.

But I can’t help but wonder what the world would be like if we expanded the spaces where everyone feels safe to be themselves. Masks are heavy. What if we put them down and used that energy to reflect others back to themselves? Who can you be here? Exactly who you are.