Its weird that the New Year fell in the middle of the week. It feels as though there were some cosmic officer of the peace out there last night saying, “Move along people, move along, there’s nothing more of this holiday to see” because today was very much business as usual.
This morning saw me in my finest ersatz flamenco regalia at dance class. Best wishes for the new year were exchanged all around and I was suprised to see Erma: she should have been in Spain. Apparently grandson No. 2 is in a rush to make his entrance to the world and her trip was cut short. “He’s coming on the 4th, “ she said, and knowing Erma, it’s a safe bet grandson No. 2 will be center stage shortly after midnight on Saturday. She also announced her personal theme for 2014: Belonging. The Divas don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. We embrace a holistic approach and work with themes. Its much easier than a long list of promises to “be a better you” that you’ll only end up breaking anyway.
Over the past few days, I’d been letting my thoughts whirl and twirl over the concept of the new year for the past few days and couldn’t focus in on one specific personal theme. When Erma said the words, I knew that “Belonging” is a perfect theme for me as well.
Feeling as though one “belongs” is a fundamental human need. Everybody feels like an outsider at times. It is not a nice place to be emotionally. Sometimes all that’s needed to change the situation is a friendly wave, a smile or a kind word to and you’re gathered in from the cold to the place where you belong. Sometimes people who are behaving in annoying way, trying too hard, seeming to too needy for attention, just need to be told quite literally, “It’s okay, we like you, you belong..”
E.M. Forster said it beautifully in “Howard’s End”:
Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.
* Images found at Google
Dutch Treat 64 