Hope

The magic you can’t quite see

No matter how vast and dark the world might seem, there’s always a tiny glimmer of hope. Sometimes you just have to look a little harder, that’s all. And believe in the magic you can’t quite see.  

Hummingbirds lay two eggs, on average, and incubate them for about 15-18 days. Mama’s been sitting on her nest for about 20 days now. So if I’ve done the math correctly, she’s probably keeping two hatchlings warm, or will be very soon.

Two, featherless symbols of hope. You can’t see them, cradled as they are in the condo nest that’s situated in a high, dark corner of our tile roof overhang. But you trust and believe, anyway, because when the sun peeks that shadowy space, her iridescent feathers catch fire, igniting your imagination and setting your heart aglow.

HOPES

She said, I don’t care what you do for a living.
She said, I don’t care what kind of car you drive.
All I want to know right now is what do you believe in
And what it means to you to be alive.

–Don Henley, “Everything is Different Now“

It’s a siren song, social media. We post glittery images on Instagram, obsess over our likes and mentions. We chime in on trending Twitter threads, not realizing in those moments of self-righteous fury, that we are, in effect, choosing chaos over positive action.

I’m worried, dear readers…worried that we’re drifting away from the ideals that we’ve always believed in, as individuals and as citizens of the world. I’m concerned that, in focusing our energies on the here and now, we’re losing sight of the dreams that we’ve been working toward, for ourselves and the greater good. So when today’s prompt, HOPES, came into focus, I saw it as an opportunity for introspection. Maybe also, a non-confrontational, open dialogue about the things that matter most.

Beyond your hot-takes on Twitter, deeper than your filtered selfie snap…all I want to know right now is what do you believe in, and what it means to you to be alive.

(Sunday, Day 11 of  #AugustBreak2019)

Nevertheless, she persisted

I’ve coddled two climbing roses for almost 5 years, now, and have been rewarded with about as many blooms. I almost gave up on them, truth be told, because they don’t didn’t seem all that happy in my backyard. But they’re finally taking off: arching outward and growing taller. We’re growing on each other, you might say. Behold the Zephirine Drouhin–a bright spot of color in the pelting rain.

Nesting season begins anew

There’s an abandoned hummingbird nest in the giant fuchsia out front. Cupped inside, a pearlescent egg that never hatched.

I swallow hard whenever I see it, remind myself, “It’s nature’s way.” But for a brief moment yesterday, I thought about pruning the branch that holds it in place. Out of sight, out of mind? Hardly. But I thought it might clear the space for possibilities.

But then again, our Thanksgiving guests might enjoy seeing this architectural wonder, equal parts spider silk and cottony magic. No longer camouflaged by leaves and flowers, It bears silent witness to the hatchlings it once housed, and to the fledglings who took to the skies during last year’s nesting season.

Left to the elements, the nest will eventually disintegrate. More likely, the fluff ‘n stuff will be recycled  by mama hummingbirds-to-be. Like this one, who was sipping nectar in our backyard at sunrise.

Nesting season is almost upon us again–maybe as soon as next week, if we’re lucky!

Hope, that thing with feathers…

Hope as antidote for suffering

Very few Monarch eggs survive to adulthood–mortality rates hover in the range of 90% or even higher! And still, the female Monarch lays new eggs every day–an average of 500 in her lifetime.

I’ve learned to respect Mother Nature’s ways, even when I don’t fully understand them. Even so, I do what I can to help offset those seemingly insurmountable odds. It’s how I’m wired, I guess. I’ve replaced our thirsty grass with drought-tolerant milkweed and nectar plants. I shield their nursery from weather extremes, and I guard against aphids and pesticide overspray, carried into my garden on ocean breezes.

Here, the story of Hope itself: struggles, persistence, endurance.

Helen Keller once said, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” We see this in our daily lives: hurricanes, flooding, wildfires, diseases, natural and man-made disasters. A microcosm of this truth is borne out everyday, in my little Monarch Waystation.

Because I’ve witnessed firsthand their potential for suffering, I appreciate each wriggling, hungry little caterpillar as a marvel unto itself.

Because I’ve wept over the sweeping losses caused by predators, I greet with joy each new chrysalis–perfectly shaped jewel boxes, housing secret transformations within.

And the metamorphosis of a microscopic, pearlescent egg into this Monarch butterfly? Nothing short of a miracle.

Outspoken courage and quiet grace

I did something yesterday that was so completely out of character that it left me shaking–and smiling, just a little.

It all started when I emerged from a framing store, rummaging through my purse for my errant keys as I headed for my car. A woman glanced out her driver’s side window, staring straight past me as she put her poshly appointed, yacht-sized pickup into reverse.

CRUNCH. She ran smack-dab into the family van that was parked behind her. An older model, with oxidized paint and a couple of missing rims. Someone’s trusty mode of transportation, marred further now by a shattered tail light and back-end damage.

She wheeled around to see if anyone had noticed. When I caught her eye, she lifted her hands in a shrug, as if to say, These spots are so darned small. What are you gonna do?

Suspecting her intent, I made the motion of someone writing their insurance information onto a piece of paper.

She lifted her middle fingers, tires squealing as she returned to her emptied parking stall.

I waited patiently by the driver’s side door, listened quietly when she positioned herself as the hero in a made-up story about a little girl running loose in the parking lot, venturing dangerously close to her oversized tires. “Thank God I hit the van instead of her,” she said.

“Maybe you could explain that to the owners,” I said. “But you should definitely leave them a note.”

In a flash, her demeanor went from faux-concern to fierce anger. “Who do you think you are? God’s policeman?”

I met her eyes with a leveling gaze. “You hit their car,” I said in a calm, quiet voice that camouflaged my growing unease.

“I’m a Christian,” she screamed, about two inches from my face.

Confused eye blinks. “That’s irrelevant,” I said.

“You think I don’t know right from wrong?” she asked. “F*** you.”

“Look, I don’t know anything about you. I’m just a witness to an accident. Please…leave them a note, so we can both get out of here.”

She flipped her hair over her shoulder, came at me with flailing arms. “Go f*** yourself,” she said.

A woman wheeled her shopping cart past us, made a U-turn, and situated her purchases in the small space between me and the truck driver. “Are you okay?” she asked me.

I nodded, just slightly, without dropping the truck driver’s gaze. “I’m okay,” I said, with an appreciative smile. “We’re just talking about hit-and-run accidents, that’s all.”

At this point, the truck driver decided it might be a good idea to inspect the damage she’d caused.

“Look at this van,” she said derisively. “They must be very poor.”

Where was she headed with that comment? No telling, but I didn’t want to go there.

“You hit their car,” I repeated. “Just leave them a note.”

I think she finally realized that I wasn’t going anywhere until she did just that.

She hoisted herself into the jacked-up truck, retrieved an envelope from her designer handbag, and scribbled something onto the flap. It wasn’t with a cheerful heart, I can tell you that. She was dropping verbal carpet bombs all the while, and wiping spittle from her mouth.

She then waved the scrap of paper under my nose, flounced over to the van and jammed it under the windshield wiper.

“Thanks,” I said sincerely. “You did the right thing.”

She answered me with screeching tires; left long, dark skid marks at the stop sign.

As I watched her tail lights flash red, I melted into a puddle of relief. My good intentions could’ve gone terribly wrong. But in hindsight, I doubt I would’ve have done it any other way.

In retrospect, I’m just now realizing why I did something so totally out of character, so completely out of my comfort zone.  It came of feeling helpless to affect any positive change, especially after the House voted to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act last Thursday. Despite the effort I’d put into convincing our legislators to do the right thing, they chose otherwise– stripping good-hearted people of their right to quality health care, and separating ordinary citizens like me from their hard-earned dollars. If this triumph of meanness isn’t stopped in the Senate, millions of Americans will suffer very real, extremely dire consequences. The “least of them” especially, while the wealthy stuff yet another tax break into their Louis Vuitton handbags.

So if I were to guess my deep-seated motives, I’d describe this situation as a one-off opportunity to set things right again. For one family, at the very least.

Make no mistake: I don’t feel one bit heroic about any of this. But as a spiritually minded optimist, I see this as an affirmation of what I’ve always believed to be true: Speaking up for the causes we believe in, and standing our ground in grace–that’s how we turn bad choices toward the good.

My 2017 Word of the Year is RISE

We worked together for several months last year, co-creators of a super-secret project for Hillary Clinton. Two women from opposite sides of the country–upstate New York and Southern California–who shared the same vision and purpose.

Though we’d never met in person, we fell into an easy rhythm. Creativity flowed, as it does when ego’s not an issue. When my new friend fell sick, I filled my planner pages with to-do lists and affirmations, colorful sketches and motivational stickers. She poked fun at those stickers, but it was laughter that helped get us through the more difficult days of her cancer treatments. Oh, and the harbor seals. Hashtag: #StrongerTogether

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On Election Day, we finally went public with the news we’d been sitting on, for what seemed like forever:

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I could hardly contain my excitement.  Pollsters predicted an early, easy victory. But as everyone now knows, Election Night was holding back some surprises of its own.

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Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but the Electoral College twisted the other way. Our hopes and dreams, aspirations and efforts…reduced to ashes, inexplicably and unimaginably so.

We explored Manhattan over the next several days, reveling in our friendship despite the pain, and reaching for the proverbial candle in the dark.

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My tweet that morning: A beautiful day at the WTC Memorial Tower. We are a resilient nation and people. #NeverForget

But once I got home, well. I couldn’t bring myself to talk about the election results for weeks, much less the video that would never have an audience.

Slowly, eventually…light overcame the dark. Hope stirred; optimism reawakened.

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The time eventually came when I could once again look to the future with clear, dry eyes.

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The moment came when I decided to take some deep, cleansing breaths. I am an optimist, after all. I’m not immune to injury and sorrow, but I do have an indomitable spirit.

RISE as FIRE

And so it was that, one sunny afternoon in late December, I ventured down to Laguna Beach. Freckles was lounging on the rocks, as usual, smiling that ubiquitous seal-smile of his and waving his flipper. Adorable. Irresistible. Irrepressible.

In that peaceful island cove, I reflected on the pendulum swing between Election Night and the restorative nature of the sea. And I remembered something I’d once read about being simultaneously courageous and vulnerable:

During the process of rising, we sometimes find ourselves homesick for a place that no longer exists. We want to go back to that moment before we walked into the arena, but there’s nowhere to go back to. What makes this more difficult is that now we have a new level of awareness about what it means to be brave. We can’t fake it anymore. We now know when we’re showing up and when we’re hiding out, when we are living our values and when we are not. Our new awareness can also be invigorating—it can reignite our sense of purpose and remind us of our commitment to wholeheartedness. Straddling the tension that lies between wanting to go back to the moment before we risked and fell and being pulled forward to even greater courage is an inescapable part of rising strong. –Brené Brown

Voilà! Like a pearl, hidden inside a rough shell, I discovered my 2017 Word of the Year:

RISE.

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Isn’t that just perfect? I’m no fortune teller, but I predict I’ll be amazed at the many ways this word will manifest itself this year, in my life and in the world around me.

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PS I created these posters in Canva, using my own pictures. You are welcome to use them, so long as you leave my watermark intact. (Just now learning, so they’re not perfect, but this is how you raise the bar.)

Holding onto Hope, Keeping the Faith

I went down to the beach again yesterday–after the tides receded, when the harbor seals typically sun themselves on the rocky shores of Goff Island Cove.  It was a hallmark day: the 7th and next-to-last chemo treatment for my friend on the East Coast.  Same as always, she was counting me to send pictures and videos, to help get her through the final weeks of that grueling regimen.

In the same way that I look to the skies for hummingbirds, she scans the ocean for seals.  They are her spirit animals, harbingers of comfort and hope. No way would I ever want to disappoint her! That’s why, over the course of her many treatments, I’ve observed very closely “our” seal family’s habits and habitat. I know, from watching them and observing the tides, when they’re most likely to appear. They’ve become very comfortable with my presence; I call some of them by name. They’ve always revealed themselves to me, even when they hide from others. But yesterday…even before I descended the wooden stairs that lead into to the cove, I sensed that they weren’t there.

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I blinked hard in the strong sunlight…didn’t see them on the rocks. I scanned the open water…no bobbing heads.Nature has her own, mysterious ways. She doesn’t operate on our timelines. I know and respect all of that. And still, I struggled against a rising panic. How could I explain to my friend that the seals hadn’t shown themselves–on a chemo day, of all days?

Tourists came and went, snapping selfies as they climbed all over the jagged rocks where the seals usually chill, calling out to each other in loud, jolting voices that would surely send the most habituated sea life into hiding.  I watched an elderly couple explore the cove, clinging tight to one another as they bent over the tide pools, whispering excitedly about sea anemone, hermit crabs and shells. They were Eastern European, I think, from the sounds of their broken English. When they approached the rocks where I stood, I introduced myself. We used gestures and simple sentences to communicate, as new friends do. Quietly, because we shared a reverence for that space. When I said something about the “seals,” their eyes lit up.  With huge smiles stretched across their sunburned faces, they pointed in unison to a distant rock formation, surrounded by water.

Here it is, a place they call Treasure Island.

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And there they were: Freckles and Friends, sprawled on the rocks in the afternoon sun. Beyond the reach of any human beings, and almost beyond the reach of my little bridge camera. Snoozing, as seals do, after they’ve eaten a large meal and nap time stretches in front of them, unimpeded by predators and ocean surges.

A young seal was nestled into a patch of surf grass, at the base of the rocks.

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The baby seal was wandering off by himself, as is his wont.

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The oldest male, Freckles, was flanked on all sides by friends, all of whom were camouflaged by the mounded rocks that shielded them from the glaring sun.

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Such a relief, to see them there, safe and sound…and, well, present. Such a pleasure, to send photos to my friend! Videos, too, like this one.

I’m reminded once again, of  the good that shows itself when we hold out hope in the face of doubt. This is what it means to “get by with a little help from our friends.” This is what it means to keep the faith.