THE POWER OF AN IMAGE

From Le Pain Quotidien Cookbook

I am someone who likes to surround myself with images which serve as reminders of what's important to me and what I want to bring into my life.  I know that some people like to create vision boards.  Those are great!  I often like to put up greeting cards with inspirational messages and pictures.

Recently, I wanted to choose a new background image for my personal Facebook page.  I decided to choose an illustration which caught my attention in the Le Pain Quotidien Cookbook.  Le Pain is a chain of bakery restaurants which feature large, communal tables for patrons to sit around.

I chose this image because one of my goals this year is to keep creating opportunities to build community, friendship, and collaborative efforts with other individuals and groups.  I think it's so important to have pictures that remind us of what it is we want to bring into our lives.  

What's interesting is what happened after I posted this picture on my FB page.   I found myself repeatedly sitting around large, communal tables to share meals with people, to make art, to have meetings that were highly collaborative in their nature.

Here are some examples:

• I sat at big, long tables with the neighbors to the apartments on either side of ours to make Valentine cards out of huge piles of fun arts and crafts supplies.
• After joining a Universalist Unitarian church,  my husband and I were invited to a member's home where we sat around a big table to enjoy a home-cooked meal.
• I happened upon a neighborhood storefront which serves as a church.  The service includes a shared meal, so the space features a bunch of long tables that people can gather around.  Recently, the church decided to offer itself up as a co-working space.  I went to a day to sample it out, and signed on for a month.  I'm so excited; I've always wanted to be in a co-working space!
• I joined my church's membership committee.  Every month, we gather around a table in the church office to brainstorm ideas and solutions.

I think I'm going to keep the Quotidien image up on my FB page for a while.  Just so I can see what happens next.  Images are such powerful things!