I don’t understand why it happens, but it happens all the time, to all of us. The world is full of things, yet, for no reason, some things become special. It has happened to me so many times.
While watching a soft and majestic snow fall, where fluffy flakes were floating around, suddenly one snowflake became special to me, as if there is a deep connection somewhere. When it ultimately reached the ground and got lost among the whiteness, I could feel a distinct sense of loss.
It happened with a leaf on an autumnal tree on a windy day, just before it blew away.
And it happened with people.
Out of thousands of similar things, one becomes special. A connection is made, a sacred connection.
This year, as the pandemic forced us to become homebound, I started to take long walks along the lake shore. It is a beautiful walk, among thousands of trees. Yet, one day a young nondescript tree caught my eyes. It seemed special to me.
Over the next nine months, I would pull out my phone and take pictures of it. Perhaps for a similar reason why people take unremarkable pictures of their children. I never looked back at those pictures, but it was probably my way of admiting my attachment. To give it a special status.
Now that the year is coming to its end, I thought of gathering these images together. Covid is still raging, but there is the dream of a vaccine. Next year will be different, but I will remember 2020 through these pictures. Like an adolescent summer love.
I must quote again my favorite passage from The Little Prince --
"My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the colour of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat..."
Eventually, the Little Prince did tame the fox. When the time came for the prince to leave, the fox said --
"Goodbye," said the fox. "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."
"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.
"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."
"It is the time I have wasted for my rose--" said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.
I don’t understand why it happens, but it happens all the time, to all of us. The world is full of things, yet, for no reason, some things become special. It has happened to me so many times.
While watching a soft and majestic snow fall, where fluffy flakes were floating around, suddenly one snowflake became special to me, as if there is a deep connection somewhere. When it ultimately reached the ground and got lost among the whiteness, I could feel a distinct sense of loss.
It happened with a leaf on an autumnal tree on a windy day, just before it blew away.
And it happened with people.
Out of thousands of similar things, one becomes special. A connection is made, a sacred connection.
This year, as the pandemic forced us to become homebound, I started to take long walks along the lake shore. It is a beautiful walk, among thousands of trees. Yet, one day a young nondescript tree caught my eyes. It seemed special to me.
Over the next nine months, I would pull out my phone and take pictures of it. Perhaps for a similar reason why people take unremarkable pictures of their children. I never looked back at those pictures, but it was probably my way of admiting my attachment. To give it a special status.
Now that the year is coming to its end, I thought of gathering these images together. Covid is still raging, but there is the dream of a vaccine. Next year will be different, but I will remember 2020 through these pictures. Like an adolescent summer love.
I must quote again my favorite passage from The Little Prince --
"My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the colour of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat..."
Eventually, the Little Prince did tame the fox. When the time came for the prince to leave, the fox said --
"Goodbye," said the fox. "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."
"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.
"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."
"It is the time I have wasted for my rose--" said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.
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