Tag Archives: hope

Are you hopeful?


Photo by Torsten Dettlaff on Pexels.com

My doctor asked me this just a moment ago. “Are you hopeful about life?”

I had to pause before I replied. Hopeful? Not really. I mean, who could be, with half of Pakistan flooded, other countries suffering under water and fire and drought and general environmental destruction? Others under war or the threat of same, famine, disease? People wielding guns everywhere as if that was a normal way to behave? Men being absolutely intolerable to women? (I know, not ALL men)(not all people or countries, either, but you take my point, and I could argue that every country is suffering from environmental damage…)

And don’t get me started on the downfall of the United States, a once remarkable country, slipping into hatred, violence and fascism with barely a care as long as the stock market is strong…

It’s hard to think hopeful thoughts at times like these, even as Covid is stepping back into the forefront, polio is giggling in the wings, and we are all bracing for the next unfamiliar virus caused by living too close to too many diseased animals.

A few years ago my family and I bonded completely on the Despair.com images – the combination of beautiful photography (as one could see on motivational posters everywhere) and a snarky message was irresistible. But then they seemed too close to truth, too true to be a joke. I recently returned to the site and found myself laughing again, but then I don’t want to think that way.

https://despair.com/collections/demotivators

It’s just too easy to be sarcastic, angry, depressed. Everyone seems to be doing it these days, too, road raging over nothing, yelling at politicians, throwing hate on anyone that seems to have created a bit of shadow on one’s day. I suspect the pandemic did two things that we will have to recover from: first, we got stressed to the maximum, with no way to work it off, and second, we were left to our own devices too long and have forgotten how to be human. A good human, I mean. The human showing our good sides, the kind side, the side that wants to get along with and help others and our planet. Not the human showing our bad sides, our aggressive natures, our general willingness to believe ridiculous things, our lack of intelligence.

So how to force enough hope to make it worthwhile to get up and face the day? It isn’t easy – especially for we aging sorts who see our abilities shrink with each passing week.

But then, we tap in. We volunteer to help someone, or learn something new and exciting, or catch the view of the clouds massing on an end-of-summer day. And suddenly, from some dark corner, a little cricket song of joy seeps out. It is sustaining.

From “The Cricket in Times Square”, illustration by Garth Williams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cricket_in_Times_Square

And then of course the best things happen, like the DOJ gets more stuff on the former president that makes it sound like he might just be sent to jail, or some action by civilized people results in more provisions for the poorest among us or a restoration of faith in democracy, and the song gets stronger.

Maybe can turn this sinking ship around, get it to safe harbour before iceberg season. We only have ourselves to blame for the situation we’re in; we know we have the ability to fix it.

Yes, I have hope. I can hear myself arguing that I’m deluded, but I’m still clinging to the lifeboat.

Waiting for the end of the world


Like so many people, I am having a stressful night. It’s the US election, and as I am watching the results dribble in I am astonished and depressed. I’m consumed with questions, like:

Who would re-elect Mitch McConnell? He doesn’t have a pleasant word to say to anyone and you can see the lines of graft steaming off of him. Or is that brimstone?

But be that as it may…and I do understand that, living in Canada, I really have no say in the US election…what REALLY bothered me in this election run up was the number of people who ACTUALLY BELIEVED that Democrats are running a pedophile ring and or eating children.

Not actual Democrats. No children were eaten in the production of this artwork.

I mean, really. Are these flat-earthers? How can they suspend their critical thinking processes to think this actually occurred? It boggles the mind. I went to school in the US of A so I know the education is limited (even in my swanky privileged town) but the level of ignorance is gob-smacking. Is it the lead in the pipes?

I also noticed that Trump’s campaign consisted mainly of accusing the Democrats of all of the things his administration has been accused of (and in many cases, found guilty and incarcerated for). Again, do his supporters really feel he is a goodly man, a Christian? Why? How?

Yelly yelly face face.

And Biden, a Catholic, a church that stands firmly against abortion and birth control, was portrayed as someone in favour of those ‘late term abortions’ that never ever occur or or desired by anyone.

Biden has a plan, policies. Trump has blather. Has the US sunk so low as to prefer yelling to common sense? Why?

Again, I am stunned. I used to be proud to have lived in the US. I love the astonishing scenery, the cultures, the many and varied people. This administration has cut back on wild spaces, damned many cultures, and created hatred between all sorts of people.

It saddens me, and breaks my heart.

Praying for a reprieve…and may God save us all.

Prepared to grieve


williamshakespeare1The tragedy of the Humboldt hockey players bus crash and the loss of all those sweet boys was and is truly horrible. I feel for parents and friends and other teams and everyone involved. Especially the driver that survived…images-26

But while this is happening, and we respond by doing things like putting hockey sticks outside doors, wearing team shirts, etc., I can’t help but think that at this moment, we are all prepped for grief, standing on the edge of weeping, hanging onto the unstated hope that the US government and people will not send the world into war.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like living in this constant state of tension, waiting for that deadly tweet from an insane man who doesn’t think the rest of the government has any role. What will keep he-who-shall-not-be-named from setting up a fake situation with Russia or Korea and sending off those “very smart” bombs he is so proud of? Especially if his stock goes down, or that infamous tape is released?

1bvnzs(Aside: his childish hatred of the Democrats is insane. Who does things like pee on a mattress just because the Obamas slept there? What is in this man’s head?)

As a Canadian, I’m not directly involved in the loss of democracy below the border, but it and the hateful rhetoric that allowed the fascist oligarchs to take over is slipping through the permeable membrane between our countries. H-W-M-N-B-N and the GOP have made it okay to promote racism and stupidity and flash anger over rational thought. That’s tempting for anyone who is frustrated by the status quo. Simple sound bytes and lack of discussion are easier, clearer, than complicated explanations and balanced approaches.vx7jcsh

 

 

So everyone I speak to seems to have an undercurrent of tension these days. A little high pitched note under their speech, a slight twitch to their eyes. We joke – but there’s a tone under the humour, like things are changing in ways we don’t like to this may be the last time the winter is like this, the spring comes like this, fall slips in like this.

920x920

I imagine it felt like this before WW1. I’m reading Barbara Tuchman’s excellent “The Guns of August” about this lead time and it sounds terribly, awfully familiar. People taking offense at nothing, anger over things that are said, a sense of chaos and loss of control. Evil people consolidating power and denying existing governmental rules, backroom deals and the lust for money.

It almost feels like something must happen to let off the tension.

Let’s hope it’s impeachment and not world destruction.

 

And meanwhile, we watch in the darkness, sensing the storm coming, unable to stop it. We giggle, nervously, clutch at entertainment and the solace of hygge, wrapping ourselves in wooly cocoons. But when something awful happens, we scream out, prepared as we are to weep.

Practicing. Preparing. For the big one?

Thank heavens for the young, the hopeful and perhaps a wee bit ignorant. Everyone says everyone must study history. True. But we must do so without engendering the cynicism many of us have tangled so close to our chests. Because cynicism crushes hope, and only in hope can we achieve any change.

sprouting-seed-1

 

 

Freaking Out!


Gawd. I am losing it, and so, apparently, is the rest of the world. Everyone is fighting one another, my sodding firstFH9J-born is still not speaking to me with extreme prejudice, journalists are being kidnapped and women everywhere are being killed and raped and abused and by golly jinkums, I am just about ready to lose it and go postal on the entire place. And don’t get me started on the mess that is this Canadian government, else I shall shoot coffee out of my nose and burn you with the effluent.

It’s hard being cheerful in such a world. I find it almost impossible. Why just the other day I thought, quite seriously, about driving my car into a tree. What’s it all FOR, anyway? We don’t seem to be progressing, we dwell in hatred and anger and the urge (ever larger) to cling to the almighty penny rather than share a wee bit with anyone else.

What the hell is wrong with us all.

Oh yeah, and I’m writing crap. For my course. Which means I will have to send it to someone I respect and feel her frustration and watch the edits mount up online. Which of course is the worst thing of all the above…

Just kidding. The world sucketh anon. But if it weren’t for people like Helen Humphreys and Roald Dahl and Christopher Moore and Terry Pratchett and Stella Gibbons and Bronwyn Wallace and Norton Juster and A.A.Milne and Edward Gorey and Jose Saramago and Donna Morrissey and PG Wodehouse and Nancy Mitford and Kermit, it would sucketh more, much much more.

And so off I toil, in the hope that somewhere in all this random verbiage, a flicker of magic may occur that makes some of this soul-sucking world make sense, even for a moment.

 

Hope, or living present while giving presents


-hope-15908It’s been a week. Shootings in Canada, Women hung for living, flogged for breathing, elections going to the right-wing, just a whole bunch of despair-inducing news. So I dither, and distract myself. Drink wine. Laugh too loud. Read the inter webs.

There are only a few wonderful blogs I follow religiously and read every day –  a favourite is Brain Pickings, and after months of finding gems on it, I’ve decided to support it as a subscription. Well worth it.

Today’s posting was on Happiness, and its fleeting nature. Feeling the teensiest bit blue (as I always do of a Sunday afternoon/evening), it spoke to me.

First, a bit from Kierkegaard, about how hope and memory damage happiness –

Consider first the hoping individual. When, as a hoping individual (and of course to that extent unhappy), he is not present to himself, he becomes unhappy in a stricter sense… But if he cannot become present to himself in hope, but loses his hope, hopes again, and so on, then he is absent from himself not just in the present but also in the future, and we have a type of the unhappy…

Similarly if we consider the remembering individual. If he finds himself present in the past, strictly he is not unhappy; but if he cannot do that but remains constantly absent from himself in a past, then we have a form of the unhappy…

Unhappy individuals who hope never have the same pain as those who remember. Hoping individuals always have a more gratifying disappointment. The unhappiest one will always, therefore, be found among the unhappy rememberers.

Whew. It reminds me a bit of Pema Chodron’s exhortation to “Abandon Hope” as then you will not suffer hurt or loss. I’ve always been a Anne of Green Gables gal, though – I’d rather feel the ups and downs of hope and disappointment, the swells of love and hurt, of joy and embarrassment. I can be blue, but I can also be screaming bright yellow. The contrast is nice for me, at least. Maybe I prefer that gratifying disappointment…but I must say, if I hear of one more woman being killed by some radical religious zealot, I am going to explode with grief and anger and horror and hatred.

A more cheerful outlook from Anna Quindlen… (highlights mine)

Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over the dunes, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over a pond and a stand of pines…

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you…

Get a life in which you are generous...And realize that life is glorious, and that you have no business taking it for granted. 

All of us want to do well. But if we do not do good, too, then doing well will never be enough.

Maybe a trip to the beach is in order, to remind me that there are good things, and good people, in the world. To be present, and grateful.

I’ve been lucky to meet a few people who are generous without thinking about it, who give and appreciate and enjoy and love. They are as the stars in the sky, they lighten my life with their beauty.

One day I hope (there’s that word again) to be like them. Right now I’m in a morass of hoping people will just behave like decent human beings. Or animals.

Relax, and feel the cosmos breathing you…


291944_231992753521741_230435437010806_543226_885758423_nAndrew Weil, MD, is a fellow who simply brims with good health and joy and gosh, even his beard seems almost rudely alive. He’s a medical doctor with all sorts of additional training in naturopathy and yoga and non-western medical practices. I’ve read a few of his books in my time and he also seems to have a healthy dose of common sense and humour about himself.
This morning I spent with Dr. Weil and his book Breathing from Audible.com. The second chapter is full of breathing exercises and relaxation breathing, the first chapter tells you why they are so important.
I woke up this morning feeling sore in all my bones, aching with MS and filled with a cold from the pool where I swim. I’m packing to move, and I am grieving for a friend who is having a terrible time. So I was cheery to the max, let me tell you. Sometimes it is fortunate I sleep alone.
So I turned on Andrew, and breathed.
And was healed.
The breathing techniques alone were worth the expense of the book and the time. Hearing Andrew breathe along beside me and envisioning his outrageously healthy self doing these exercises was also wonderful. The techniques were useful and I’ve parked one involving timed breathing for the next time I feel an urge to eat tons of chocolate or send a hateful email or beep my horn.
But the bit that left me weeping was an exercise in pretending you we’re not breathing yourself, that the universe was inflating you down to your toes and then gently sucking the air out of you, only to inflate you again.
Andrew says, “feel the cosmos breathe you.”
Okay, I have to admit that sounds pretty new age flaky stuff, but to tell you the truth, it was a wonderful release, so much so I found myself weeping tears of joy and opening my mouth wide to take in the blessing.
We believe we are in charge of so much, we try to control so much. I can’t even enjoy swimming anymore because I am always wanting to make sure everyone has a lane to swim in! It’s insane.
The thought of letting the cosmos take me, rest on my lips like a lover, and breathe for me, was impossible to describe.
And left me with a profound, encompassing sense of gratitude. About everything.
Thank you, Dr. Weil, and your health and common sense and good cheer and open-minded ness that also is capable of critical thought (at one point, he takes time to explain why we are to rest the tips of our tongues on the roof of our mouth while breathing, talking about various energy circles, only to say, “I have no idea how this is applicable to what we know about human physiology, but since these guys have been doing it for years and found a benefit to it, why not bow to their greater wisdom. Can’t hurt…”(paraphrasing))
(I always taught this in prenatal class as a way to ensure your mouths didn’t get dry when doing breathing exercises…)
The book- highly recommended. Get it on audio and listen to Andrew breathe. You’ll be better for it.

Or go to his website and check out the exercises he recommends. For free.

Hmm. Sunday afternoons might not be a good thing, after all.


http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2011/02/20/our-dream/

Sometimes a posting comes along at the right time. I’m feeling a bit frustrated, writing-wise, and having trouble deciding if going to the Erma Bombeck conference would be a good thing or just an extra expense  (would probably block out my chance of seeing Newfoundland this summer). My dreams of being published are slipping a bit, and I’m feeling a bit bleu as another contest goes by with no prize for DA.

And then I read this blog entry by Paulo Coelho and it sounds so right. I’ve been at home on disability for three years, almost, now. Yeah, I am home on DISABILITY, so that implies I am perhaps not as capable of work as some. However, it is all too easy to let everything slip and just ease along, thinking in grey wooly patches or sunny warm corners or along the tune of something by Brahms or Debussy. It’s comfy. It doesn’t push you.

It’s hard always being a self-starter, when days spin out ahead of you in what seems like endless numbers, and you have a disease that makes you tired and all that. It’s so so easy to put things off til tomorrow, so hard to commit to anything as life meanders along.

You have the excuse, after all. I’m sick, you can tell others. I can’t possibly be expected to…whatever.

This is like death under a thousand featherbeds, gradually smothering until your life is nothing but sleeping, eating, breathing.

Like Coelho says, it’s important not to let that happen. It’s important to keep our dreams front and centre, to keep working towards them.

Right?