Il est trés simple :
on ne voit bien
qu’avec le coeur.
L’essentiel est invisible
pour les yeux.
The holiday is over. Suitcases unpacked. Mounds of winter clothes lounge in the laundry with the overbearing silence of snow banks.
Plane travel has moved my body too quickly from one side of the world to the other. I can adjust to the temperature swing from -37 degrees Celsius to +36 degrees, but it’s the lag in my emotions that’s unsettling. It’s the way some part of me still lingers in Canada and the US with friends and family and familiarities from my childhood. We are formed by the topography of our youth.
I turn on the computer. I pull out the notebooks. I search in my head for the power of words. I’ve spent so much time in the last month having fun with my closest people that I haven’t made plans for this bright shiny new year. Nor have I evaluated accomplishments from last year.
What I do realize, however, is that trying to create a world where everyone feels they belong is more important than ever before. For all of us.
That’s a big statement isn’t it?
If you’ve been reading my articles for the last year, you’ll know what I mean when I talk about belonging. True belonging grows out of empathy, acceptance and inclusion. It’s connecting in peace with people from different backgrounds and countries. It’s about embracing diversity with a spirit open to understanding and learning. It’s about wearing uncertainty with humility. It’s a life of gentle questioning and quiet respect.
After living in Canada, France, the UK and Australia, and studying belonging for the past year, this is the type of belonging I’m aiming for.This is not an easy path. It’s exhausting to question my motives, evaluate my behaviour, and try to live up to the premises I’ve stated above when I’m actually quite feisty and opinionated. I slip. I judge. I make mistakes. I pick myself back up. I apologize. I learn.
Because, you see, I believe one person can make a difference. Maybe I’m not that person, but maybe you are. Maybe together we can join others who are working for a better world.
Perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned in the past year is that belonging is not something we can seek out or make.
Belonging, like love, is a gift that arrives on snowflakes of hope only after we reach out to include others.
And now here is my secret,
A very simple secret:
It is only with the heart
that one can see rightly,
What is essential
is invisible to the eye.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry The Little Prince