Listen. It's been a tough year, a crazy year. An unthinkable year. The loss of life, unimaginable. So many shattered hopes and dreams. Fear and anxiety our daily bread. For many an unbridgeable distance between us and our loved ones who are so far away.
So hearing the positive news about increasing vaccination rates, and decreasing illness and deaths due to Covid-19 has been a literal shot of hope delivered right into my arm. Two weeks after my second vaccination, I started to make plans for a road trip back to North Carolina to see my son and daughter and son-in-law (last sighting: December 26, 2019, the day I moved to New Mexico) and to catch up with friends, tend to Roadcinante, and gather the rest of my belongings, the things I left when I moved, certain I'd just zip back in March of 2020 and fetch them.
Lordy, it's been a year, and then some. I've had to practice hope, the way you have to practice an instrument, like how your mom made you sit for hours working on the notes, your dad reminding you to paying attention, stay focused. Breaking a sweat while your teacher stood behind you as your brain created those new neural pathways. Practicing hope has been like that for me, making and then clearing the spiritual and emotional pathways. It has been and continues to be work, y'all.
That's because hope is hard, gutsy business. It’s a trapeze-without-the net, death-defying, in-your-face kind of stubbornness. It’s radical and it’s counterintuitive and it's fierce.
And it looks with absurdly dogged persistence toward the future, insisting, in spite of how things might seem, that a better day is coming.
Amen and amen again.
There is a song about hope that I love a lot, "One Fine Day," written a while back by David Byrne (of Talking Heads) and Brian Eno. It's hymnic. Sacred. And very full of the things I think we all could use more of right now. Here are some of the lyrics.
Even though a man is made of clay,
Everything can change that one fine day.
Then before my eyes, is standing still,
I beheld it there, a city on a hill.
I complete my tasks, one by one.
I remove my masks, when I am done.
Then a peace of mind, fell over me.
In these troubled times, I still can see.
We can use the stars, to guide the way.
It is not that far, the one fine day.
Since today is Byrne's 69th birthday and I'm so very glad he was born, here is a video recording of him performing the song with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus several years ago. If you give it a listen, you may want to have some tissues handy. Remember, we've been through a lot.
Happy weekend. As always, thanks for following along, and a special welcome to all new followers. Wishing everyone peace.