Hope Christmas

I had a friend in college who seemed to collect men like little kids collect baseball cards. Most weren't the sort she wanted but now and again, she found a good one and kept him for a while. 

The particular man I'm thinking of in her circle was sad and struggling. Being 19 at the time, I couldn't think of much I could do to help him. I was pretty much of a mess myself then, too.

One scene that sticks in my mind happened in February, when it seems like winter is never going to end. I think I was telling him I was really depressed and he said he felt the same. At one point, he said, "I don't know what happened. Christmas was so hopeful, and then everything fell apart."

When he said that, I wanted to cry--and would have if I hadn't walked away to look out the window. He was right though--there IS something so hopeful about Christmas. Of course there is the celebration of he birth of Jesus and Christianity. At the same time, I think Christmas is also hopeful for those who aren't Christian, just because people are so happy and making an effort to live Jesus' words and to be kind.

That effort seems to flatten out in January and doesn't revive very easily. It flattens for people who are pinning their hopes on something--whether it's a job or a relationship or a baby or all of the above. This man I knew was lost; I knew that because I was also lost. I had a feeling I'd be struggling my whole life unless I found some way to deal with the hopelessness around me.

I think I found it in writing, which gave me a way in to understand more about the people I know and myself too. I have no idea what happened to the man I mentioned here though, because I left the neighborhood in my junior year of college and moved to another one.

But I've been thinking about him lately, as the year has been so dark and so much harder than any one of us wanted it to be. And it occurs to me that Christmas isn't so much about hope; it's about the reason for it. Isn't that why so many people want trees, especially the evergreens at this time of year? I think the Russians have a word -- nadya -- that means the beginning of hope. Maybe that's the best part. 

And wherever this man may be-- and I have no idea where that is--I want him to be hopeful again. 

Because hope isn't just one thing. 

It's everything.

Merry Christmas.

Towels, Waiting

Now and again, I remind myself that Ruby Tabeata, the main character in the Beat Street Series, wants to be a poet when she grows up, like the Beat poets around her (Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, Amiri Baranka, Charles Bukowski, Elise Cowan and many more). 

I love writing Ruby's poetry and trying to jump into her generation's style and language. But today my own poem started forming because of the times we're in.

Towels wait patiently to be folded, unmoving cotton letting me know 

They can't sustain being thrown onto the top shelf of the closet and that

Eventually they'll fall down and dirtify themselves, meaning I'll have to wash them again and lose the time I so desperately covet

Even though coveting is one of the deadliest sins

I can only fold, fold, fold fold fold

Keeping fear from wrapping wet, hairy arms around my throat like a long-dead lover come to snuggle again 

And like a shrink who understands you, he smiles and waits for me to talk and I do, spilling it all like peanuts into his lap. Boys and girls, I say, my husband contracted shingles  many years ago and that migrated to his eye.

Doctor fixed it and we thought we were done

But anxiety got him too in the age of Coronavirus and after a long protracted cold

The monster returned to attack his peripheral vision 

Ah, but there's always more in a doctor's office and the doctor sez so, spilling his own peanuts

This virus could migrate to the other eye or even the brain, and I say God forbid to myself so the doctor won't hear me

Instead he rattles off this week's menu like a waiter: surgery and in-office injections

Towels are waiting patiently to be folded, and I fold them

Because it is one of the only things that makes me breathe right now

In, out, fold, smell the clean

A kind of meditation for the meditation averse
Folding, folding, folding fold while I look out at 

Calm blue glass lake outside as we 

Hide away out here pretending the world can't get at us

Every day waking to say, will he get better but he isn't yet 

Towels are all neat on the shelves now

Just like when we first moved in so full of hope

The way all possessions look when you unpack them

Waiting for death, waiting for Guffman, waiting for love, it

Doesn't matter.

They will always be waiting.

'Til we're ready to fold them again

*****************************************************************************

I'll leave you today with a group of great middle school books that includes Dragon Future from my writer pal Kandi Wyatt, as well as The Beat on Ruby's Street:

https://www.raeknightly.com/post/middle-grade-treasures-book-promotion-for-young-readers-april-25-may-25-2020

Woman with towel photo: Debs (ò‿ó)♪

Hope and Expectations: Dirty Words?

Well, they're not supposed to be.

But can they be?

Let's unpack this and see where it lands. A certain percentage of kids are growing up in a country that may be at war, or unable to lift itself out of poverty, and hope is of short supply there. If there is a ray of hope, they'll hang onto it, and they should, and you should help them do it.

Another percentage are growing up in a land of plenty and they may be told they can do whatever they want to and get wherever they choose. That could happen, sure. But can it also set the stage for unrealistic expectations?

Say your child tells you he/she wants to be a physicist. You can steer that child in the right direction in all sorts of ways and help him or her get into schools that make this dream into a reality. In that case, expectations would be mostly realistic.

Say your child tells you he or she wants to act in movies and become a big star. You can be helpful in getting the child training and so on; but a lot is going to depend on luck and the people your child meets along the way. There's all kinds of things that can derail that ambition.

Hope and expectations here can be treacherous. You don't want to derail your child from the ambition, because that isn't going to work. But you may want to temper the expectations and tell them that, while you are behind them 100%, there is a lot in the profession that can't be predicted and all they can do is the best they can without the expectation of becoming a star.

Are there other things they want that they can have? What's realistic for someone going in to the entertainment profession to want? What will they need to do while they are trying to make their way -- and will they have the strength to do it?

All questions you may want to ask them -- and at the same time, ask them to think about what they will do if stardom doesn't happen, just as an acting exercise. What will make them happy? Because that's a reasonable question, and it won't cost anything to answer.

My friend Irene O'Garden told me once that she realized she was working way too hard to be happy, and that she finally realized it wasn't a destination, but somewhere she already was. I loved that and tried (with uneven success) to live that way, but always felt it could be true if I was able to manage my expectations. Irene's new book Risking the Rapids: How My Wilderness Adventure Healed My Childhood has inspired me again about a lot of this happiness stuff; so I thought I'd share it with you.

So, yes, hope and expectations, by all means. But maybe we (I) also need to take a look at who we are, wherever we wind up. And figure out how great that can be if we let it be.


Meditating Boy: NCVO London


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