Snippets from HCIM 2022
The part of me that was nervous disappeared almost immediately upon stepping into the Fokker Terminal. Pleasant greeters with smiles and gift baggies ushered me along to a room with big red globes suspended from the air, where good natured baristas full of light-hearted self-importance and interesting people milled about, meeting each other again after so many years apart. Latte and banana in hand I met a duo of German clowns in bright bandanas who told me they had a long five hour drive to get to The Hague. It tickled me because a 5-hour drive, depending on the direction, isn’t enough to get me out of my province back home. And so here it began; it didn’t matter that I was the only Ontarian at the conference. None of that mattered because there was so much stimulus. In fact, it was almost too overwhelming to lock eyes with a complete stranger and know, just know that they too are a fool answering the same calling as myself. Australia, Denmark, Norway, France, the Netherlands, Italy and Sweden, Portugal and Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine. But it was my neighbours, the clowns from Quebec and the Americans that felt immediately like family. You see, I have met many of you before online, or over the phone, or have taken workshops with you, or have learned about you in school. But to meet you in person is another thing.
Moving the work online almost immediately after graduating from Helen Donnelly’s school in Toronto had the side-effect of shrinking my worldview. It felt so small, boxed in and almost futile at times. But to be in the Hague, in a brightly lit hall with a clown band pumping us up, with all these bright open eyes concealing new stories and experiences that I wanted to know–well, it confirmed to me that, yes, our network is real and it is really, truly global.
It was an honour to team up with Melissa Holland and the HCIM organizers to put together a tribute to Helen Donnelly, my friend, my teacher and mentor. I always imagined attending HCIM with her, and have her introduce me to all of you, and let her show off the way she did when she was super proud of something. But I knew from the previous years that this was not to be. So it was truly touching to be able to share a portion of her story and her work in a country I’d never been to for a community of fools I’d just begun to meet.
The most impactful thing for me was Mark Meiras in a panel discussion on the first day talking about how the brain activity of laughter is linked to both the amygdala and the identity centre of the brain. That when we laugh, we feel ourselves, we become stronger in our identity of ourselves and don’t give in to fear and trauma as readily.
