Hope Is The Thing

 

It’s been a year since everything locked down due to the pandemic. How funny it seems now that we thought it was going to be a two week lockdown to control the spread of COVID 19, after which we would go back to life as we knew it.  It’s been a rough, soul sucking 12 months, and it isn’t over yet. Yes, things are starting to reopen; some too fast, some seemingly not fast enough. Recently my husband and I went to dinner at a restaurant, a year almost to the day since the last time we did so before the big shut down.  It was quite a treat, but also strange.  Servers in masks, and patrons unmasked only long enough to eat with lots of space in between tables felt odd.  Since we are all vaccinated in our house, we felt that it was a minimal risk to spend time on a Saturday afternoon lingering over a meal we didn’t have to prepare nor clean up.  It was our first step toward a return to something close to life as we knew it.  As we wait for things to “normalize” we can take small steps such as a dinner out and ease back into being less isolated from others; it gives me hope.

Spring is on the way after a cold, snowy winter which had us hibernating here.  The tall snow piles are nearly gone, and much of our yard is mushy but free of snow.  The tops of the trees, closest to the sun are starting to look a bit reddish which tells me that the stronger March sun is coaxing forth buds in spite of the cold temperatures.  I look forward to the buds bursting and leaves unfolding to color the landscape with varying shades of green.  Soon crocus, daffodils, and tulips will sprout and bloom and forsythia will splash sunny yellow around the yards in my neighborhood for a few weeks before turning green.  We’ve already seen our first robin, but I have yet to hear the geese honking as they stop by our lake on their migration trip north—any day now they will appear.  It is another hopeful sign when the seasons begin to change that life goes on as it always does, turning page after page until the story of the year is complete.  The details of what happens vary year to year, but the framework remains in place—seasons come and go in a certain unchanging order we can rely on.  The moon waxes and wanes, the sun rises and sets, plants grow and die or lay dormant and it all begins again in its own time. Nature is reliable that way, thus there is always life and therefore, hope.

Things will get better, we will be able to enjoy the company of others, and feel as if we are living our “normal” lives.  There is comfort in that.

This is what hangs above my kitchen sink.