Looking Up in Hope

My son took this photo on Friday when we went for a walk in the woods. We’re definitely seeing more sunlight and feeling its effects. Those birdsongs of spring warm the soul just as much as that burning orb warms our bodies and minds.

It all inspires hope.

Hope, like this photo, speaks of looking up. Up, or perhaps the proper word choice is “out”. Without hope, we close ourselves off and protect whatever we feel is on our inside. We exist. I’ve felt a lot of that in recent months. I actually didn’t even realize how closed-off I’d become until a door opened. A door I’d given up on and had to be shown was there.

We exist in any number of permutations of our selves over time. Every decade of life can bring a host of variables that alter the how’s, where’s, why’s, what’s, and who’s of our daily living. Those variables fuel the forge that melts us into what we are. The forge never quits until our final quenching.

Time alters us.

It can force us to shut parts of our selves off as we seek to survive. Those abandoned parts shrivel and rot like apples left on a tree as winter hits. We push them even farther away as we seek pleasure in the things we do have in our lives. We don't want reminders.

If we’re lucky, we can still have a good life. It’s just different than what we had imagined.

What happens if a time comes when that old place of wonder and delight is again at our doorstep? Can we see the opportunity? Do we risk opening that door? Can we walk into that realm again, but as the person were are today? We may need help to see the promise of potential that’s maybe- just maybe- within our reach. If we can accept that there's a future we can help mold.

We need help to look up. To hope.

That’s where I am right now. I know the person I was. I know I’ve gained a ton of perspective and experiences over the years but I’m still trying out this idea of looking up. It’s tempting, but I’m also afraid. I'm tiny. I wonder if I should just keep my head down and leave it all to someone else. I worry I’ll just take an opportunity away from someone else if I step forward.

But the birds are singing. The sun is warming. The sky is calling.

Hope.

Our Time Best Spent

 

Two quotes I posted from famous women authors over the years popped up on my Facebook timeline this month. I want to consider them both today.

“The great thing about getting older

Is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.”

-        Madeleine L’Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time

“It’s good to have an end to journey toward,

But it is the journey that matters in the end.”

-        Ursula K. LeGuin, author of The Earthsea Cycle

We journey for as long as we have time, and our today is influenced by our yesterdays.

I’ve never been one to long for times gone by. I’m here. I’ve made it this far. I’d hate to have to go through the pains and struggles that I have experienced yet again.

The good and the bad experiences still live inside me and in you. And as Ms. L’Engle points out, we still have those other ages within us. They (both who were were and what we went through) can be today’s gifts if we look at them in that light.  They can teach us today, and now we have the added benefit that their immediacy is not longer a part of the deal. The experiences are tempered by time. All we have to do is look back with our eyes of today, and not struggle to retrieve the experience and the eyes of yesterday.

With our eyes of today, we can step forward into tomorrow.

Ms. LeGuin adds a twist. I can have a thing I want to reach- a hope or a goal, but the getting there is my true reality. I may never get that hope, but I will have the reaching for it.

What’s the story of my reaching? What’s the story of your reaching?

Every day I get older- I’m a bit different from the previous day. Every day, I’m a slightly new me, built from all the previous days and interactions. The same goes for you.

We need to support each other's journeys. We’ll do that best by remembering our past days while also letting today and tomorrow have their place. We’ll do that by acknowledging the similarities, and respecting the differences that add richness to life, and removing the practices that go against those two goals.

I have an idea for another essay that’s springing from this one. One that covers how our institutions should be in step with our individual values. More on that later. In the meantime, as we wind down 2017, I wish you peace on your journey. May you have what you need, love what you have, and give what you can.