A Meeting Place

Sometimes it’s helpful to imagine a low wall, elbow height, between you and another person when you’re with them. This isn’t a high barricade, dividing people from one another – quite the opposite. It’s a meeting place.

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It’s something to lean on... something that signifies each person leaning over the wall is from a different world, with their own wisdom and lifestyle; it’s a place where you can look over and greet the other person, and where they can look over and see what life is like for you.

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But we sometimes focus too much on the wall itself, and mistake it for a boundary to be moved backwards or forwards, or knocked down.

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Instead, the point of the wall is this: to forget about the wall. It's simply there to help us say hello.

 

The wall doesn’t stop us from meeting each other; it just lets us stand back and see someone more clearly.... or maybe not quite get them at first; and that's alright! Because misunderstanding someone helps them to rephrase their perspective, and so know themselves better too.

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And perhaps, the wall gives someone the choice to say, ‘Hop over’, or ‘Come in through the gate’, and invite the other person into their world.

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By meeting someone else, I also greet the Me who’s doing the meeting - I see myself in a new light. Because we all need to connect with others; and to do that, we need to know we are separate.

 

© A.J. Quarmby