Shaker

No matter what kind of new place you find yourself in, most people have the desire to try and fit in.  Restarting school in an unfamiliar location with a group of unfamiliar people has been like watching a social experiment.  All of us have completed undergraduate, many are married, have spent years in the workforce, or just generally possess adult capabilities, and yet throw us all into a cafeteria setting and everyone's insecurities come out.  When you're standing in front of a crowded room full of people with a lunch tray in your hand, all you want is to find somewhere to sit where you'll be included.

And that inclusion been happening, slowly but surely.  Friendships are being formed, kindnesses shown.

It's the small moments that really make you feel like you belong.  

Take, for example, an experience I had during choir yesterday.  Being in choir has already given me a place where I feel like I belong and am wanted.  For one of the songs we needed a little extra percussion, and it was requested that someone volunteer to play the shaker.  Never one to pass up some good shaker action, I raised my hand and suddenly found myself holding the shaker.  Up until this point I'd been having a lousy day.  Looking at that shaker though, and being able to add something else to the song, to the choir, suddenly made me feel a little bit better.  I had a purpose.  I had a role to play.

Inclusion comes in all shapes and sizes, and sometimes in the form of a small, egg-shaped shaker.