McBeth.
Such a funny intangible thing it is, hope.
Most of us carry some of it around in tiny invisible pockets, buttoned securely to our hearts, always right there in case we need to slip it out to touch it caress it remember it reidentify it.
If you grow crops, it is likely that at least some of your pocketed hopes involve that which you have absolutely no power over - wind and weather. Weeks of unending dryness can rattle your hope like a racking cough. Will these dry days ever end? I hope some rain will fall soon. Dark skies come as a sparkling signal of potential goodness.
I find it a difficult task to remain true to my hope. It is much easier to morph into whatever seems most flexible, most content in the now than to check into my little pocket to remember what it is that I truly hope for.
But every time - EVERY time - I neglect my hopes, they find a mysterious way of creeping into my day to day life. In discontented feelings, in frustration, in my aggressiveness and defensiveness. Every time I deny them, my hopes find a way of demanding acknowledgement.
I'm learning not to say 'no, I don't really have hopes'. Because I really do. They're there. They exist.
