Where is the hope?

It’s hard to be hopeful when things really don’t feel very hopeful, isn’t it? I started writing this yesterday afternoon, before I’d seen the video of the Minneapolis police and what they did to unarmed George Floyd. We have to find a way to make this better.

I'd like to think I'm a fairly positive person. When I write, even if it’s not a happy topic, I like to end on a more positive note because that’s how I’m wired…I need to find the bright side of things. And yet, we’re in the middle of a global pandemic with no real end in sight. And we don’t know what the future holds as far as the rest of this year and school and other things that we think of as “normal.” And the man who is supposed to be leading our country is having a much better time dividing us, mocking his rivals, tweeting conspiracy theories, with little relief from his horribleness or lack of leadership in sight. And his defenders still defend him. And public health has become a political weapon; simple protective face masks weaponized in a weird new culture war. And the same people who a year ago insisted their right to bear arms at all costs was more important than our children’s right to be safe in their school now insist their right to a good time somehow supersedes yours or my right to feel safe when we leave our houses. And on and on and on. And I just don’t know how to find a hopeful note to end on when everything feels so hopeless.

I’m heartbroken for the mess we seem to be embroiled in: the vitriol spewed on social media comments by people on the extremes (and maybe not so extremes) and the awful things that are happening in the news: Covid deaths reaching over 100,000 and apparent disdain/disbelief of it, the murders of black men on video, disaster after disaster. With no end in sight for any of this ugliness, we’re like sideline players left to feel. And heal. It’s hard to find hope. Right now. But I don’t feel like all hope is lost.

Can you feel as though you’ve been sucked into a vortex of hopelessness and sadness, but not feel like you’ve lost all hope or feel sad all the time? How does that work? I think of it like this: There were some bad things that happened to me in childhood, but if you ask me, I would say (with complete honesty) that I had a happy childhood. These things aren’t mutually exclusive, are they?

What did people in other eras do when things felt this bad? Because in the history of our country, or all humankind for that matter, there have been times that have felt just as, or even more, devastatingly terrible. Young people facing angry mobs with rocks and other things hurtled at them as they integrated schools, Japanese families rounded up and stuck in internment camps, slavery, Civil War. 

I have friends who’ve intentionally been writing about the goodness of the world…that’s their gift and they do a great job of it. I want to find that hope and see things to be grateful for in every day life, too. Mr. Rogers reminded us to look for the helpers.  Laura Ingalls Wilder said, “As you read my stories of long ago I hope you will remember that things truly worthwhile and that will give you happiness are the same now as they were then. It is not the things you have that make you happy. It is love and kindness and helping each other and just plain being good.”

And Anne Frank was able to see the beauty in a world that locked her and her family in a tiny room for two years and ultimately killed most of them. “It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart,” she wrote. 

If Anne Frank can do that, so can I. The hope is there. So is the beauty. I don’t think we have to give up hope to care about the awfulness of what we see. But I do think we have to compartmentalize to avoid getting sucked into that vortex of despair. So I guess that’s what I’m going to do.

Finding the simple joys on the harder days

There are days in quarantine that just feel harder than others. And of course, they are. Pandemics are hard. People are dying. We already have more than 10,000 more than the estimate we were given two weeks ago for total US deaths. And we still lack adequate testing. And we can’t trust the information we’re given by our leaders as they work to silence the scientists who are most knowledgable. And people are storming state capitals with artillery and others are balking at the mere suggestion that wearing a mask might help others stay alive. Or they’re refusing to social distance in the name of “we want to go to work” when what they seem to mean is “I’m bored and I want to go to the beach.” (disclaimer: I KNOW people need and want to go back to work. That isn’t what those “protests” are really about anymore than they’re what this post is about). Of course this is hard. People are struggling financially, people are dealing with all kinds of things. It’s hard to watch the news most days. 

But when I say some days just feel harder than others, I mean hard on a more visceral level. The kind of hard where you feel like you’re going to cry and can’t really pinpoint something “that’s wrong,” but you know you just feel sad enough to, anyway. Maybe you miss your students and school the way it used to be. Maybe you had an “optional” Zoom class and no one showed up and even though you’re adult enough to know not to take it personally, you still do. Kind of. Or you sign in to a staff meeting that you don’t absolutely have to be at just because you want to see your co-workers’ faces for a few minutes. Or maybe you’re at the point where, in any other school year you’d be knocking out some of your best work and projects along with winding things down with students, but you can’t seem to make yourself do them the way you want to, instead inventing new things to do that don’t turn out the way you want them to.

And on these harder days, I suppose we have a couple of options. We can: 1) Wallow in the sadness; 2) Ignore and just push through; 3) Stop, take a breath and realize you’re not being terribly productive, lace up your shoes and go for a walk. If you opt for number three, here’s what could happen. You might get a couple of doors down and see these grand sidewalk chalk drawings that say, “Thank you” and “Thank you Teachers.” Maybe you get a little further into your walk and you see a family across the street with their dogs and you yell over to the 3-year-old who’s wearing a backpack, “Hey…that’s an awesome backpack,” (because that’s the sort of thing you typically do) and he strikes up a great conversation with you (from a distance). He tells you his dogs’ names and then, as you say goodbye, he finishes the conversation with, “Bye. Be safe!” And at this point, you tear up but also start smiling a little. As you keep walking, a song like “Titanium” comes on and it does exactly what you need it to do,, so you listen to it two or three (or maybe four?) times and you even add in the arm motions from your cardio dance class, not caring what others may think as they walk by you doing your big muscle arms. 

These hard days really are tough. This may be the hardest thing most of us, collectively, have ever had to do together. There’s no real instruction book on how to handle life in quarantine. Or what to do when the news brings us down and we become disillusioned or we miss things from LBC. We all have different ways of coping: Sharing funny memes, political rants, baking, creating, exercising. It sure feels like getting out and finding the simple joys during a midday walk is one sure thing I’ve found to help on days like this. What are some things that work for you?