An Essay A Day For A Year
By Roe
Day 12, January 12, 2012
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I hope I don’t die today. In fact, I can’t even keep from hoping I don’t die today. Even people that are ready to die and want to die can’t help from hoping they don’t die today. It’s a good thing that life and hope come from the same spark, otherwise none of us would even be here. And how funny that ifs! If none of us were here, the spark of life and hope wouldn’t mind a bit, they would keep on living, and keep on hoping for us.
Hope comes from a factory built and managed and operated by small children. Tiny little fetuses build hope out of the life spark inside their mommies, and the hope spark is managed by newborns, and operated by small children. All we big people have to do is look into the eyes of a baby and small child for the hope we once knew. It is always there, and it will always be there, just like inside of us. I really hope you can remember that, but it really doesn’t matter, because I can’t stop hoping that you can’t stop hoping, and even if we both did, the life spark of hope wouldn’t mind a bit, it would just keep on hoping for us.
Hope is like a little candle that you can’t blow out, and hope is like the intensity of the strongest sun in the universe. The beauty of hope is that the little hopeful candle has the same duration and intensity of that strongest hopeful sun. Just like us, they just can’t stop if they wanted to. The saddest people of tall time, having lost everything worth living and loving for, hope like newborn children, hoping with the intensity of a birthing star, that they may once again have what is worth hoping for. Hope is the life force that hopes for itself. If life were a space ship then hope is the inexhaustible gas that rockets us forward.
I have been to the factory where the little children make the hope, and so have you. I remember the spot where Thomas The Tank Engine invented his phrase, “I hope I can, I hope I can!” And I remember the spot where he grew up to “think” he could. I also remember the spot where he doubted he could, and where he knew he couldn’t, and where he didn’t. I also had those very spots much later on in my life where I got too big and smart and grown up to remember a little candle like hope. Luckily, like me and you, that little candle never goes out, and we can look up into the intensity of our beautiful sun and say, “I hope you rise tomorrow my friend!” And then laugh at ourselves as we mumble, smiling to ourselves, “but I know you will, but I know you will”.
When I was a baby and a little boy I hoped for a lot of things. I hoped that my mommy and daddy would love me just like I dreamed. They didn’t. I hoped that bad things would never happen to them and to me. But bad things did happen. I hoped that the animals and the trees wouldn’t have to die for me to live, or anyone to live. But they died anyway. I hoped when I was a small boy in the 1960’s that I could show the white people like me how to me nice to the black people marching, but no one would let me. I hoped that I could sing all the songs about loving to everyone that I heard on the radio, but I never did. What happened to me?
I never used to think about hoping, I hoped like I breathed and I hoped like I smiled. “It’s OK Mommy”, or “It’s going to be OK cow or redwood tree!”, I used to say. Or, “Don’t worry, everything is going to be OK!” I would say to strangers that I felt to be unhappy or sick, before my parents would haul me off, apologizing for my rudeness to the smiling person. What has happened to us big people?
Luckily for us, Life is very hopeful! Every minute of every day in every place in the world Life sends us brand new hope-amaticians, and hope-fularians and hope-you-love-me’s. Every moment of every single hopeless day, somewhere in the world, probably right next to you, if not right inside of you, there is a brand new CEO of hope developing and being born, and learning to speak and walk. And lucky for us, these hope-ful-lovers, they don’t know about how Thomas doubted himself, how he ran out of coal and water, and how the cowboys and Indians blew up his tracks. They especially don’t know that Thomas is the last of the steam locomotives in the world and all alone. All they know is, “Hi Thomas!” And no matter how old and ugly and tired and mean Thomas is, it is always followed by, “I love you Thomas! And I hope you love me too Thomas!”
And I promise you all fellow hopers out there, If you and me and Thomas are at the bottom of a gorge all forgotten and rusted from a sad and tiring life, and a brand new hopo-motive looks us in the eye and says, “I love you!, and I hope you love me too!”, we are going to shoot up into the sky like missiles, coal or no coal, and live and love and hope again. Candles never go out, not yours, not mine, and not anyone’s. And you can’t put them out if you want to. You may ignore them, deny them, be angry and hurt at them, and give up on them, but life never gives up on itself, and we never give up on ourselves. Trees know this, animals know this, fetuses and babies and small children know this, and somewhere in our hearts we all know this.
Today I’m going to go out and find me some little hope-a-motives. I’m going to go out and take a little sapling to a safe place to grow, I’m going to block a busy sidewalk while an inch worm makes it across, I’m going to watch a mommy kitty clean her new babies. And I’m going to remember when these things used to make me all excited, and when I used to cry when I was so hopeful for them and me. Today I’m going to watch babies take first steps, and puppies trip over themselves with the excitement of bringing the ball back to someone they love, and I’m going to hug perfect strangers when I feel their hopelessness and illness, especially because it invades their sadness. I’m going to find one of those funny distorted circus mirrors and make faces at you standing there with me, and we’ll laugh at each other and call each other silly. Or so I hope. At least I can say to anyone and everyone like a naïve little hope-a-tive, “don’t worry, everything is going to be OK!”
I hope to hope again with you tomorrow.
yourpersonalmuse@gmx.com
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