It’s 2016 and I’m working at RiseUp Summit heading the Content department (which largely consists of speaker acquisition). My then co-worker—now best friend—and I are locked in the design team’s room staring at a whiteboard filled with circles and scribbles. We are trying to figure out how to divide the topics we want to cover into the appropriate talks and panels. There are two fresh coffee cups sitting on the table between us, although it is past 3.00AM. I throw the whiteboard pen at Hana attempting to get her attention. Really, I am frustrated beyond belief. The clock ticks ever faster bringing us closer and closer to the actual event and we are nowhere near ready. At around 7.00AM we decide to call it quits for the day. We share a cab back to my uncle’s place, where I am staying, in order to catch a few hours of sleep before going back to the office again. I cross the threshold into the apartment and immediately feel it: safety.

 “Safe spaces are non-judgmental and non-threatening. They’re empathetic. Comfort zones.”

“In a safe space I can really be who I am. I able to open up and show the real me.”

“A safe space can be a community or a person or a place. You can even have a safe space within yourself.”

The topic of safe spaces is really special to my heart. When I thought of approaching this topic for a blog post those three weeks I stayed at my uncle’s in 2016 immediately came to mind. There was such a stark contrast between the events in my day-to-day life and the way I felt when I entered the doorframe of that house. The house offered me a sanctuary, a place to really be myself and hide away from the stressors in my life. I would return every day from a crazy day’s work and be cared for and enveloped in softness and acceptance. I didn’t have to be strong or have any answers, I could just be HodHod: cousin, niece, friend. Since then I have come back to my uncle’s often for just a taste of that sheltered-ness. I have come back when I need a break from home. I have come back when I’ve wanted to stay out with friends. I have come back just for a quick lunch, and my Uncle’s has always offered me that same peace and caredforness.

Most people when asked about their safe place will respond with “home” or some variety of that answer. My room. My bed. There is an immediate association between where you rest and feeling safe. Shelter is the basest level in Malow’s hierarchy of needs. Without it, we as mammals, as a species, cannot really exist. Or cannot exist happily. Personally, I have spent the past two years outfitting my newly refurbished room to have it resemble the safe space I have in my head. I have bought little twinkly lights, hung up art work, picked out photos, planned the color scheme (with a lot of help) to begin to forge my adult experience of safety. As a child and teenager, I never really had to define what safety meant to me. Everything was “safe” because my parents always made sure it was. But I think it is imperative for us to define what safety means to us as individuals. To re-define it as mature adults and know how to re-create it if we must. Hence my relationship to my uncle’s place was really a turning point in my life.

In 2019 I moved to New York to pursue a Masters in creative writing. I left my home, my country and all of my “safe spaces” to somewhere totally unknown. There, I was really confronted with what it means to feel “unsafe”. From the place I rested, to the road back from uni, to the grocery store where I did my shopping everything felt big and foreign. The backdrop to my life became the sounds of sirens and ambulances, and I had to watch my bag everywhere I went for fear of getting mugged. I know, it sounds like a cliché, but it’s true. Amidst all this uncertainty I managed to find what I felt safety meant from within myself. I managed to create a safe space within me, from all the safe spaces I had ever encountered, and to nurture and grow it. I broke down the concept of safety and rebuilt it bit by bit.

A note to myself from that time reads:

“I am safe and I consciously choose to welcome the emotions that arise. I allow them to be felt and accept them.” It goes on to list questions of safety and self and what I perceived to be my intuitive, “true” answers to them. I was trying to connect to my value-system and to see what could make me a better, more centered, human. If you’re curious, it goes like this:  

1- How can we be authentic?

BE YOURSELF

2- How can we not run away from this moment?

BREATHE

3- How can we not be hurt?

Be honest about your feelings (if possible in the moment)

4- How can we be safe?

TRUST IN GOD

5- How can we be better?

You already are

6- How can we have more?

YOU ARE ENOUGH

7- How can we be ourselves?

Trust your body and your mind

8- How can we let go?

Try

9- How can we stop obsessing?

DO SOMETHING ELSE

10- How can we forgive?

Love yourself as you are and let others love you too

If I remember correctly this list came from an exercise of Byron Katie’s “the work” and was just one of the examples of books and philosophies that I read in that time in an attempt to find a home within myself. But how do you go about creating a safe space within yourself? Where do you start?

For me my voyage into myself began with radical honesty. There was so much turmoil and newness in my life I had to re-evaluate my core beliefs and one of those was what safety meant to me. I remember living in a new apartment with a new roommate— someone I’d never met— and being unsure whether or not I could blast music in my room or if I could leave the dishes lying around for a bit. I learned that “safety” for me was authentic connection. It was being able to voice my opinions without being judged and having a place of solitude I could return to when everything felt too much. Sometimes this meant a physical space, which I created in my room.  

“ I feel most safe when I’m alone, to be honest. For me safety is when I’m by myself enjoying the quiet.”

“My bed and my dog. Quiet Bean is the love of my life. He feels like my comfort zone.”

“Safety is my house. Going home feels like a break from life. My family give me comfort and I am able to just chill.”

“Being near the beach. You see change and dynamism, but you are static. You get the benefits of the view without the chaos.”

“I am safe with very close people that I can open up to. When I share with others.”  

A few days ago I was at a party. It was called “friends of friends” or something similar, the idea being that everyone there was a friend of a friend. I went with a close friend on the referral of a mutual friend of ours, expecting it to be one of those awkward social situations where you know nobody and just stick together. Immediately on arrival though I was proved wrong, I ran into a couple of people I knew from uni and the younger siblings of some of my close friends. It was a bit of a weird out of body experience for Cairo, this little cocoon of the world where everyone is sort of tied to each other, yet not very obviously connected. Six degrees of separation, or whatever. A manufactured organic communal safe space. And it really did feel “safe”. Everyone there seemed to have gotten the M.O of “just be yourself” and came in with an open-minded friendly outlook on life. Within an hour I had already connected with other writers and artists and my friend had made a potential business deal with a client. I guess that’s where this idea of “trust” really comes in. To feel safe you have to trust what’s on the other end of you. To have faith in a bigger energy that links you.

In October 2020 I suffered a meltdown of sorts. Various health problems I had exacerbated, and I was left stressed and hopeless as to their resolution. In a lot of ways, I felt like I had lost the thread that connects me to myself, my authentic beingness so to speak. That was when I found safety in others. Not being able to trust myself and my pain-filled impressions, I depended on my family and friends to guide me through this tough time. My mom would physically hold my hand and walk me to the bathroom, because I was too scared to go on my own.

Safety is a blessing. Being able to grow up or grow old under relatively safe conditions is not something to take lightly. Many of us numb ourselves into perceived safety using drugs, food, sex, alcohol and tv. In absence of real safety, bone-deep groundedness, we create a fake net for ourselves, one we can easily get lost in. Possibly, that is where the idea of a “comfort zone” comes in. Personally I have spent many a night binge-watching shows on Netflix, but I can’t say that this behaviour ever felt truly safe to me. There was always an element of connection lacking. A want to be heard.

Today I keep a note on my laptop entitled safe spaces. It reads:

• My uncle’s
• The womb (my friend Hana’s room)
• Amina’s room in Toronto
• The roof of my aunt’s Bianchi house (and Bianchi in general tbh)
• Basata
• Our garden (and our house in general)
• The Spot in DP
• The roof of the GrEEK Campus (that little hole I found)

And newly:

• My room

And still counting

Safely yours,

Girl With One Earring