I wanted this column to pour some hope your way, along with the rains. It can be a confusing season – nutty, fun and sometimes sad as we venture toward a new year. Still, many of our endeavors come from wishing and footwork. For example, The Sun newspaper has continued onward, in spite of the death of our beloved Val. This issue will be full of robust pictures of our town’s spirit, a spirit he loved.
Life has a way of scraping our knees, but hope holds us. Like, this week my cell phone broke down and my jovial mood became a struggle with technology. Everything I did on it took more time and more glaring at it.
As always, moving forward took work, both inner and outer. The psyche has many parts and inside mine I re-discovered that my inner child is frightened by new devices, having grown up struggling with algebra. I had to do some major self-talk and take the next small steps. Figuring out how to maneuver the new one took many trips to Verizon, Staples and friends.
In the midst of it, I turned to Anne Lamott’s writing. She always offers realistic hope, like this, on her Hallelujah post of December 15: “Although there is suffering, there is also new life. We learn to dance again, with limps, after our hearts break their legs. That is why people with big hearts show up with almost unfathomable caring and life force – volunteering to clean up beaches after an oil spill or make casseroles for neighbors when they are mourning the loss of a loved one. Stitch by stitch, we patch things together.”
So, there was the inevitable insight once again: hope arrives from taking the next step. It’s accomplished, “stitch by stitch.” All change can be hard, like following MapQuest when it takes you the wrong way. I miss my old phone with its familiar buttons, but hey, I can take great pictures now. And I have more compassion for the public who seem to stare into these little boxes all day. Now I understand part of it might be trying to learn all the extra doodads and new icons in there.
Hope matters. America needs it too. We just can’t crumble up in a little ball when discouraged. We are, each of us, called to persist for ourselves and for the next generation. The limping globe needs us – our non-white and Jewish friends and everyone afraid. We simply have to keep taking the next steps, to keep moving away from cruelty and toward civil liberty, stitch-by-stitch.
There are so many kind, patient people out there who want to give, we just have to reach out and hand them our phone. Hope appears again as we keep our eye on the ball and keep dribbling the ball along.
My dear mother wrote this “Note to My Daughter” for me right before she died: “If I knew the answers (or, indeed, the questions) to the worldly riddle, I would tell you all. As it is, I’ll just say – try to keep your nose clean, eat right, brush your teeth and watch the bouncing ball.”
Photo by Larry Robinson
Katy Byrne, MFT – Psychotherapist in Sonoma, and author of Conversationswithkaty.com.
Be First to Comment