Writing to make meaning. But where is hope?

The news is much on my mind these days — what it shows us, how it shows us, when it shows us. The images, the noise, the intensity — it’s all everywhere all the time. As I try to process it, make meaning of it, memories of how it used to be burble in my mind.

I remember learning in my masters in applied communication program about how US President Ronald Reagan and his media people took a strategic approach to managing the news of the day. I cannot find the reference for it, but I am pretty sure I remember learning that Reagan’s press secretary knew that if he could get his preferred story to lead the 6 o’clock TV news, the whole country would take its political cue from it: Control the national news, control the national narrative.

This reference I did find, from a New York Times story on October 14, 1984: “Mr. Reagan … and his aides have achieved a new level of control over the mechanics of modern communication — the staging of news events for maximum press coverage, the timing of announcements to hit the largest television audiences. Moreover, the President has displayed his news media artistry at a time when television has become the dominant means by which the public gets its news. From the beginning of his Presidency, Mr. Reagan and his aides have understood and exploited what they acknowledge to be the built-in tendency of television to emphasize appearances and impressions more than information…”

I ponder this as, today, the news comes us at from multiple platforms 24/7 every single day of the year. No longer must we wait anxiously for the trustworthy avuncular news anchor to tell us what happened that day. These days, the news pelts us from every direction, delivered by more or less celebrity anchors, all the time. Relentless and unremitting, it is hard to take a breath, step back, and try for a glimmer of hope.

All this was in my head this past week as I wrote my piece for last Sunday’s writing group from this spark: “People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spider’s webs. It’s not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of the cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rises for another go.” Source: Twitter/“Mathew” @CrowsFault

This is what I wrote. It doesn’t change the big picture, but the writing of it did bring me perspective on what I believe hope is.

————

HOPE GROWS UP

In the long-ago Before Times, they had a quaint habit of gathering around the flickering box with the talking heads to learn of the latest atrocities and abominations their own kind had caused around the world. The soundtrack was gloom and doom on the screen and disapproval in the living room.

But back then, Hope was fresh faced, well turned out in no-iron nylon (so convenient), optimistic about her future, even as she wondered about the state of theirs.

The world continued to spin around the sun, and the sun came up day after day after day.

As time went by, the talking box grew bigger and bigger and then became smaller and smaller until it could fit into a pocket. But the talking heads continued to tell of terrible things around that world, and more often, more insistent, more awful.

Over time, Hope’s fresh face grew drawn, brow furrowed, eyes dulled from the terror and the pain and the suffering the humans rained down on each other. Not only on the global stage, but within their own homes, on their own bodies, to their own spirits. And, yet, Hope ironed her blouse (now linen, less convenient, more natural), polished her shoes, and matched her hat to her coat.

But it had no effect. The humans did not see, did not seem to care. They just kept doing those terrible things. Everywhere: Murder and mayhem. Sadness and despair.

Then, one day, Hope realized her pin-neat appearance was distracting, was misleading, the humans. Presenting to them the false idea that she was whisper light and colour coordinated.

That day, Hope rose early. She dug in the back of her closet for her older sister’s favourite clothes. Grit’n’Gumption had favoured blue jeans and purple boots and a ratty red wool sweater. Hope put them on, cinching in the jeans, adding a second pair of socks to fit the boots, and rolling up the sleeves of that ratty old sweater. She looked fierce, felt ten feet tall, and strong.

She strode out of the house and roamed the streets with a swagger she had not realized she could muster. Had not realized she should use.

At first, she was not recognized, not seen for what she had always been and was still: a beacon, a life line, a way through. But as things got worse and worse for the humans — borders breached, bombs dropped, bodies maimed — they gasped and grasped, then stretched themselves to touch, then hold Hope’s hand. Tight, so tight it hurt. But hold they did. And hold she did.

Yet the murder and mayhem continued. Slow learners those humans.

Though some learned. And a few learned something:

• Without Hope there is nothing but gloom and doom, nothing but murder and mayhem.
• With Hope, there is a chance, the possibility of different, of better. There is a chance for peace — or, if not peace then more than mere survival.

When Hope, in the clothes of older sister Grit’n’Gumption — when that Hope strides down the street, hand out, open, ready to hold, it is for us to make the effort.

And effort it takes.

To dig deep.

To reach out.

To hold on.

***

For a different style of my writing, on a different topic (submitting my work for publication) and a different perspective on hopes and wishes, I invite you to read my essay that was published on Brevity blog last Friday, October 27th. 

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

Photo credit: "Purple Vegan Combat Boots" by moria is licensed under CC BY 2.0.