Hope is the thing

 

 

So, my good friend Ashley suggested I start channeling some of my emotion back into what I used to love to do and haven’t done in a while—writing. So here’s the first step to that.

There is a poem that I have a love-hate relationship with. It haunts me. As Aunty Em says, “One need not be a chamber to be haunted.” I think Uncle Stevey would agree. Forgive me, but I will simply plop that poem below for your reference; although, if you ever took an English Language Arts class in North America, you have probably seen it.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -



And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -



I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

 

Yes. Yes. I know. I can hear you groaning at me through the screen,  but stay with me for a moment. I’m going to tell you a story (because we learn best through stories, don’t we?). When I was trying to get pregnant, this poem kept popping up. You know how a line of a TV show, or perhaps a snippet of song, seems to sort of follow you along? Like, you’re minding your own business and for some reason, the minute you turn on the radio, it is the last few chords you hear before the DJ comes on to warn you about traffic? Or maybe the song references a yellow VW bug and now you see yellow VW bugs everywhere? Psychologists have a name for it that basically means that you are seeking out confirmation of your own subconscious in your waking life. On the other hand, if your subconscious yearns for it, maybe there’s a reason. Uncle Stevey calls those “the boys in the basement,” and he accepts them as they come.

I am more like Aunty Em, perched in her attic—nervously surveying life at the end of a dash—forever paused, yet propelled forward. And that was what was happening to me when I was trying to get pregnant. I was paused, every month, but trying to propel myself forward through sheer will. Unlike Aunty Em, my attic was not in solitude. Mine was on fertility message boards.

If you ever want to see the ravages of “the tune” of “Hope” that “never stops at all,” go onto a fertility message board. It is “the chillest land” and the “strangest “Sea.” Rituals involving teas and sleeping positions, moon phases and supplements. It is where witchcraft still lives as women explain that they have been  TTC (Trying To Conceive) for two years, eight years, twelve years. There are messages of triumph but more, there are messages of desperation. All of them carry that same “Hope.”

Em put “Hope” in quotation marks for a reason. Hope is a happy word. Hope is a lovely notion that makes us work harder. “Hope” is a misused concept, a cruel thing whose talons wrap tightly around our hearts. Whose wings beat and flutter and titter with every cycle. Whose sharpened beak pokes holes with every miscarriage, every negative pregnancy test (you can start testing on CD20 by the way depending on when you ovulated). “Hope” squawks at you, a tuneless, relentless screech at every baby shower you attend. It keeps you up at night trilling about parents who don’t appreciate their children. “Hope” stares at with you its dark and beady eye as you walk past the baby aisle, trying not to look at little Easter outfits.  

“Hope” can’t be abandoned, though, because even at 42, as early menopause has begun to set in, you still hear a little shriek of it in the night. “It never stops at all.”

See, Em, like me, is a hopeless Hope-addict. We all are, really. After I lost my last pregnancy (and nearly made myself very ill in the process of refusing to let go of the little “Hope” that had perched in my womb), I decided that I needed to let go of “Hope.” I got mad at this whole damned “Hope” thing. I needed change. I needed a new breath. The little bird was “abashed” and damnit so was I.

I picked up my whole world and moved away from the “Gale” that was my life. I had to let go of control and ritual and the “Hope” that if I just timed everything right, ate the right food, exercised the right amount, slept in the right position, took the right supplements, that I could MAKE something perch and stick and stay. I prayed I could let go of expectation, because “Hope’s” “sweet” song was what was making me miserable, keeping me up at night. It was maddening.

Then I had this school year. And while I thought I knew what it was to be humbled by the teaching profession, this year brought me to an entirely different level. I asked for correction, and I got it. Brought to my knees and brought to heel.

Funny how words are. I was brought to heel.

I learned to heal.

Aunty Em would have liked that. Uncle Stevey too.

“Hope” is not Hope. “Hope” is expectation, control, ritual. Hope is letting go. Hope is not sadness or longing or yearning for something different. Hope requires work. That last line “Hope” has “never asked a crumb from me.” “Hope” is what you think you need. Hope, on the other hand, is recognizing what you’ve got and moving forward in life. Hope requires faith and wisdom.

I got a letter from a student today. She says: “One line from Orleanna that consistently comes back to me whenever I’m struggling is “To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know.” I think that sort of embodies the most important thing your class taught me, and that is that I won’t always be the same person and that it is okay for things to change. For a long time, I was denying myself that happiness of acceptance, so thank you for always assuring me and the class that everything would be okay no matter what.”

Look at that.

I did that. (Well, Kingsolver and I). I made that little ripple in that kid’s life. My kid. They’re all my kids. And out of the mouths of babes—

Hope is acceptance of change and finding joy in change. “Hope” is the expectation that what you perceive as happiness will occur if you work hard enough at it. It is not lost on me the perfect timing of this. The day after an email comes out praising me for my virtual teaching—the same day that I felt like a horrible failure at my job—I get a letter from a kid who highlights the most important thing I do that has nothing to do with I THINK my job is. Teaching Gatsby was never the point, just like teaching Poisonwood Bible was never the point.

I teach the humanities. I teach humanity. I don’t teach curriculum. I teach kids. They are my kids. And they are the Hope.