Hope -- not just a "thing with feathers"

If we let the current state of the world depress us to the point it's hard to function, the bad guys will have won before we even get to November. Many days it can be a struggle to see a bright side to what's going on, especially when the weather turns cloudy and gloomy. Fortunately, many (some?) of us have an ability to redirect our focus from what's unpleasant to what can bring us joy. Puppies, kittens, scampering fawns or wildflowers are among the quotidian sights that can bring a needed element of upbeat realization that not all is lost. Here's a picture of some black-eyed Susans to help you perk up.

July's black-eyed Susans in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

If that doesn't do the trick, take a look at the whitetail fawn. The blurry, still picture doesn't exactly show scampering or cavorting, so exercise your imagination a little. Photos, even real life experiences like those shown in these photos, don't make everything ok, but they do show that neither is everything awful and so long as life goes on there's reasons to hope.

a fawn caught between scamper and cavort

Photo by J. Harrington

A well-known author and oral historian, Studs Turkel, wrote a book, published a decade and a half ago, called Hope Dies Last: Keeping the Faith in Difficult Times (aka, Hope Dies Last: Making a Difference in an Indifferent World). Almost as if he could foresee today's United States, because we've been in serious trouble before:

'Hope has never trickled down,' writes Terkel. 'It has always sprung up' - and he gets his title from Jessie de la Cruz, a founder member of the farmers union, who insisted: 'If you lose hope, you lose everything.'

Naomi Shihab Nye writes of a similar relationship between loss and hope in her wonderful poem.

Yellow Glove

By Naomi Shihab Nye

What can a yellow glove mean in a world of motorcars and governments?

I was small, like everyone. Life was a string of precautions: Don’t kiss the squirrel before you bury him, don’t suck candy, pop balloons, drop watermelons, watch TV. When the new gloves appeared one Christmas, tucked in soft tissue, I heard it trailing me: Don’t lose the yellow gloves.

I was small, there was too much to remember. One day, waving at a stream—the ice had cracked, winter chipping down, soon we would sail boats and roll into ditches—I let a glove go. Into the stream, sucked under the street. Since when did streets have mouths? I walked home on a desperate road. Gloves cost money. We didn’t have much. I would tell no one. I would wear the yellow glove that was left and keep the other hand in a pocket. I knew my mother’s eyes had tears they had not cried yet, I didn’t want to be the one to make them flow. It was the prayer I spoke secretly, folding socks, lining up donkeys in windowsills. To be good, a promise made to the roaches who scouted my closet at night. If you don’t get in my bed, I will be good. And they listened. I had a lot to fulfill.

The months rolled down like towels out of a machine. I sang and drew and fattened the cat. Don’t scream, don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t fight—you could hear it anywhere. A pebble could show you how to be smooth, tell the truth. A field could show how to sleep without walls. A stream could remember how to drift and change—next June I was stirring the stream like a soup, telling my brother dinner would be ready if he’d only hurry up with the bread, when I saw it. The yellow glove draped on a twig. A muddy survivor. A quiet flag.

Where had it been in the three gone months? I could wash it, fold it in my winter drawer with its sister, no one in that world would ever know. There were miracles on Harvey Street. Children walked home in yellow light. Trees were reborn and gloves traveled far, but returned. A thousand miles later, what can a yellow glove mean in a world of bankbooks and stereos?

Part of the difference between floating and going down.

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