Do you think that walls have voices? I think I’ve come to believe this. Certain locations, certain architecture and certain groups of people speak to us in gentle ways. Imagine, if a stone wall from a French medieval village had ears and a mouth… then what variety of things could it tell us?
My visit to Valbonne yesterday still lingers with me, and I feel the need to go back and listen a little more. I’m starting to believe that this is what we do when we travel… we look for the places where we can hear the clearest. It just so happens that I have been presented with a reason to go back there on Thursday, and I’m looking forward to what I learn again this time.
Looking back, I know that this little village has taught me in a very deep and personal way that we are not to judge by appearances. A smile is not just a smile, it is a performance or a façade… something that the owner of the smile wants others to see. The reason behind it is deeper than we can see with our eyes. Not only in a person, but on the walls… in many little French villages, clean or pretty borders are painted around the windows. It’s subtle but effective, and it creates an illusion to the eye which makes the scene appear more pleasant.
In Australia, I was taught as a lawyer to be suspicious of appearances. To dig deeply into something and find the real truth. In France I learned that this skill should not be used in every aspect of life… and that the only truth you’ll find is never “real” but simply your own. When we forget these things, we worry excessively about how we look to others – it’s probably one of the most natural things in the world to do. But this always leads us away, in complicated paths, from truly doing what we want. It makes us forget that we can decide what we’d like our own truth to be.
As such, whenever we finally wake up to our life not being the way we want it to be… we cannot simply press control, alt, delete and restart. We must look at ourselves gently and decide that this moment is as good as any to start walking in a new direction.
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