Holding Space

On goofy names for sweet concepts.

I don’t like the term “ideate.”

It’s a too-lofty word that’s trying to do what “think about” already does just fine. It’s wearing a suit to a job interview when jeans and a button down would have been more appropriate.

The first time I encountered the word was while working with a non-profit on a series of videos.

“Let’s set a time to further ideate,” they said at the end of a meeting.

“To what?” I asked, sure I’d misheard.

“Ideate—kick around ideas.”

Hadn’t we just spent the last hour doing exactly that? Couldn’t they have just asked to set a follow-up? All I said out loud, though, was “sounds good.”

I hung up the phone confused and a little annoyed.

I loved the people I was working with, the project we were making was exciting, and I was a huge fan of their organization’s mission. It was really just the word that crawled under my skin.

Ideate. Oof. It’s doing too much.

This week a similarly overeager term skyrocketed into the zeitgeist: holding space.

No need to re-hash what you probably already know, but just so everyone’s on the same page…

In the blessed hurricane that was the Wicked promo tour (this will be my my last Wicked-related post I promise!!) journalist and queer media personality Tracy E. Gilchrist asked Cynthia Erivo if she knew that people were “holding space” with the lyrics of Defying Gravity in the wake of the U.S. presidential election.

Here’s an edited version of their full exchange:

TEG: I’ve seen this week people are taking the lyrics of Defying Gravity and really holding space with that and feeling power in that.

CE: I didn’t know that that was happening.

TEG: I’ve seen it on a couple posts, I don’t know how widespread but, you know, I am in queer media so that’s my—

CE: That’s pretty cool.

Cynthia Erivo looked genuinely touched to hear this.

Source: Out

The moment, specifically the term, quickly became a meme.

And, like Damn Daniel before it, this meme leapt from the confines of the internet and into our daily speech. In the last four days “holding space” has been invoked in every social interaction I’ve been part of and at least three times per group text. Plus, this adorable Reddit post proves that it made its way to the Thanksgiving table, too.

It’s fun to take part in the meme-of-the-week, to ride the latest trend and signal to our community “this silly thing happened and I’m in on it.”

But the term holding space isn’t new to me—as I’m sure is true for anyone else who has been in therapy, attended an organizing meeting, or knows the power of hemp.

Sure, it’s a fancy way of saying something that could be said more simply, but sometimes you’re tired of wearing sweatpants so you put on a ballgown instead.

It’s not alone, either. It comes from a long line of words and phrases just like it.

Intentionality walked so holding space could run. Synergy is its corporate uncle and thoughts & prayers is the maligned cousin who was iced out of family gatherings.

All these terms are lofty, yes, and goofy, sure, but I think they’re valiantly grasping at the intangible. Attempting to define what we may not see, but definitely feel.

This Wednesday my husband Todd and I were on our way back from a movie. We were exiting the subway when we heard wailing. The source of the sound became clear as we approached our exit: a woman had fallen down the stairs and couldn’t get up.

It must have happened only seconds earlier, but a kind stranger was already in action, gently comforting the fallen woman while he called for an ambulance.

This subway station has two exits and many weary riders came upon the scene and quickly opted to take the other one, avoiding it altogether. I don’t blame them. But there were about seven of us who stayed. All we did was stand, mostly in silence, as we watched the kind stranger speak with the woman, call her children, and coordinate with the paramedics.

We weren’t necessarily helping—but we weren’t pretending to either. We knew there wasn’t much else we could do, and trying to insert ourselves would only have hurt. So we just stood there, frozen in tableau.

Once the paramedics safely had her in their care, we dispersed.

An ungenerous read of the situation would say we were gawking, but I don’t think that’s the case. We were just there. Present. Sure, we were there for the woman, but we were also there for the good samaritan should he have needed help with any of the many plates he was juggling. We were understudies at the ready. Neither heroes nor hinderers.

I wish there were a term for what we were doing. “Rubbernecking” doesn’t feel fair. Plus that sounds more like something hormonal teens do in movie theaters. We were present in the moment, ready to help if called upon. Making the cold, dark subway station feel a little less cold and dark.

I guess you could say we were…

Sorry. That sentence feels too cheesy to finish, even for me.

I’m not saying we have to embrace the term “holding space.” I understand that memes are one of the last tethers we have to whatever remains of our crumbling social fabric. But I do think that these seemingly silly terms are trying, perhaps imperfectly, to name something just beyond our reach.

To be clear, though, I still don’t like “ideate.”