To Feed Each Other Hope

This can still happen anywhere.
Not everything is lost.

-Gate A-4 | Naomi Shihab Nye

---

Today, Thursday, is the first time I've felt the slightest ability to take a deep breath and put my feet under me since the weekend. I feel fragile and raw and new and very, very vulnerable. I feel guilty of holding secrets close to my chest and guilty for being able to do so.

I'm really, really struggling with being hopeful this week. I'm clinging to threads, but everything that comes across the wires feels empty and false. At some point, Starfish Theory kind of feels weak in the face of all of it, and that's a hard place for me, because in general Starfish Theory is something I lean on. The philosophy of one thing at a time gives me the power to do something when the challenges as a whole seem impossible. "One thing at a time" makes impossible things seem attainable, when I can believe in it. 

On the way to work today, I listened to all four currently-released episodes of Morgan's District Dispatches [soundcloud | itunes | rss]. Originally it was going to go straight into the good stuff list, just for existing, but then I wept my way through Benevolence and it felt like a solid place to stand, finally. It's a story I'd read from him before, but it came at the right time, and I suspect I'll visit it again.

It made me think of Naomi Shihab Nye's poem "Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal" and its ending "This can still happen anywhere / Not everything is lost." It made me think of her poem "Shoulders" and its penultimate stanza, "We're not going to be able / to live in this world / if we're not willing to do what he's doing / with one another." 

The phrase "to feed each other hope" came across on another podcast this week, and I don't even remember which one or the context but I know it meant something to me, and that as I was listening to Mo's podcasts, I was being fed hope. 

And in so many other ways this week: in those of you who read my frustration and sent out kindness; in those of you who took time from your day to read the words that poured when I couldn't find the right things to say; in those of you who shared your own sadness and frustration and rage and kindness; in the speeches and letters to senators and more; in the creators who made media to address everything that happened and how they felt about it; in the neighbours' lavender patch which made G sneeze for days but also perfumed our house gently with a calming scent. 

When my hope was weak you have fed me, and I thank you for it.