Hope is fierce and loving and wears purple boots with a red sweater

December’s darkness brings the return of the light in many ways, and light brings hope. Literally, a new beginning in the new year ahead. But hope is not some flimsy notion laid over the mess we’ve made of things. Hope is a fierce clinging to what we know in our heart: Things can be different, better, more loving — but only if we fight for it to be so.

This week’s post is about hope — or maybe Hope, as I spell it in my story below. The three quotes I open with make clear just how active hope/Hope must be for it to lead to something new and better…

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“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 

“To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.” 

Source: Raymond Williams

“We need stories to remind us why hope is complicated but necessary, because the opposite mode is to live neat lives powered by a self-affirming wireless fidelity to all-terrain gloom, where all signs point to defeat, and despair waits at every turn. To hope is to embrace uncertainty, knowing the bad guys have not won yet." 

Source: Renato Redentor Constantino via Rebecca Solnit

Here is my story about Hope...

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. 

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first published October 31, 2023

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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 by Andrea Ferrario on Unsplash