on creating welcome and belonging
I am a confirmed introvert, with a preference for staying home over any social gathering, but when my friend Sean emailed me a couple of weeks ago and asked me if I wanted to meet for coffee sometime soon, I didn’t hesitate to say yes. Sean is one of those folks who has a soothing aura about him, so I hold no illusions that my acceptance of his invitation was for entirely selfish reasons. I offered to meet him near his office, and he suggested we go to Mo’ Better Brews, a Black-owned, vegan coffeehouse near his work. Intrigued by the name alone, I agreed.
Sweet Baby Jesus Lying In A Manger, it was so good.
This is the flight of tacos, and I’m telling you, what these folks can do with a mushroom should earn them a Nobel Peace Prize. Unreal.
I followed Sean’s lead and ordered the flight of tacos. I’d been on my best behaviour, but lost all chill when I bit into my first taco (the one on the right).
“Holy shit,” I said through a mouthful. Sean stopped talking.
“RIGHT?!” he grinned. “I told you, this place is amazing.”
They also sell vinyl, calling themselves a Wrecka Stow (IYKYK). I took Marcus back to Mo’ Better Brews for breakfast this weekend, and he scored the album above — 1967 Jimi Hendrix. Hell yes.
Sean and I spent an hour catching up, holding space for each other as we mourned wars, genocides, terrorism, bigotry and other world events, we disclosed work challenges we found ourselves navigating, and we shared family delights we’ve been experiencing that help sustain us. (Connecting with lovely Sean is never superficial, and speaking with him always feels, well, welcome.). Eventually, he had to return to the office for a meeting. We hugged our goodbyes and I walked over to the counter to pay for our meals.
“I’m so mad,” I said.
“Why?” said the woman behind the counter, her brow slightly furrowing.
“I’m so mad that I never came here before. I can’t even believe what I just ate.”
She burst out laughing. “Oh! I’m so glad you liked it! Are you vegan?”
“No!” I was almost incredulous that I wasn’t, especially after that meal.
“Nice,” she said. “My favourite is when folks who aren’t vegan come in and love the food. You are so welcome here. Please come back!”
Later in the week, I took myself out for a pottery date. I say “date,” because it was at one of those places that markets themselves as a place for a “creative date night,” and is not actually a place where you can learn pottery in any in-depth way. Even though it was the middle of the day, I was, in fact, the only person there without a date, but I didn’t mind. I booked the experience as preliminary research for the book I’m currently working on, so it was lovely to both try to create my first piece of pottery and watch as others tried the same. The room was filled with folks of all different backgrounds — races, genders, nationalities — and although we were different from each other, we greeted and made easy conversation, bonded by the experience we were about to have together.
An hour later, the piece in the image above was sitting on my wheel. (Please note that I didn’t say “I made this,” because the amount of intervention required from a very sympathetic instructor to result in that piece makes it impossible for me to honestly call it a creation of mine.) As I was washing the clay off of me (so. much. clay.), I asked one of the employees who was preparing my piece for drying before firing if there was any way I could take classes with them.
“Oh, I’m so glad you liked it!” she said. “We don’t offer classes, I’m sorry. But there’s a great place that does.” She wrote down the address. “I love them because they have wonderful classes, but mostly, they’re about community. This is very important to me.”
Usually, the word “community” can have me running scared, but there was something about the way she said it that made something inside of me say, Community. Yes. Exactly what I need. “Thank you,” I said.
“Thank you,” she said back. “And please, come again. You’re always welcome here.”
Over the weekend, I watched the Netflix show The Greatest Night in Pop. It’s about the making of “We Are the World,” the blockbuster charity single recorded as a benefit for African famine relief in the eighties, and featuring the voices of over forty-five of the biggest voices in pop music of the time. It was a herculean feat getting all those artists in a room for a single night, and while I won’t ruin the story for you, I will say that what struck me the most was (a) how intimidated so many of those legendary artists were, just being in the room with the other legendary artists, and (b) how one of Lionel Richie’s superpowers was making every single one of those artists feel like they belonged there, as if the project would absolutely fail but for each of them being in the room together. “You are so welcome here,” his manner seemed to repeat over and over. The result, of course, was pop music history.
And so as I write this, I’m surprised by how much the act of welcoming and creating belonging kept showing up in my world. (As another example, please go read Camille’s recent thoughts on what it means to “be welcome here.”) I can’t help but wonder what the world might be like if we were each primarily motivated by creating welcome and belonging — would genocides end? Would discrimination disappear? Would the earth heal? Would starvation be a thing of the past?
I don’t know if I have the answers to those questions. But I do know this:
No matter who you are, you are so very welcome here.
P.S. In case you missed it, I’ve shared the Chookooloonks February 2024 playlist over on Spotify. Enjoy.
It’s where the anchor might be.