‘Hemelsbreed verschillen’ in dutch or ‘to be like night and day’ in English means roughly the same as the French expression ‘être comme le jour et la nuit’. Both expressions evoke the image of two extremes that are so far apart that rapprochement seems almost inconceivable. The word ‘hemelsbreed’ refers to the vast sky, where day and night occupy opposite positions, on either side of a seemingly unbridgeable void. In this case, it refers to a linguistic divide. This visual contrast emphasizes how wide the gap sometimes seems, while at the same time showing how the elements on both sides of that heavenly difference come together in a shared horizon.

The nature of the mind is like the sky: boundless, without fixed form or discernible center. Thoughts arise and dissolve into the void from which they emerged. Yet we try to anchor them in reality through boundaries and connections that we ourselves assign to them. Through language, the quality of a line, or the contour of a shape, we try to grasp phenomena—or at least to encompass them—and give them a clear place. In a predominantly bilingual context, this takes on an extra dimension: a phenomenon splits in two and reveals its elusiveness through language, especially when Belgians try to put it into words.