MiniSky: Thoughts About Everything

hopefull-y this little birdie is going with me in busy beaver button form to blogher. please ask for one if i should see you there.

I’m not sure why exactly but the idea of Hope and being Hopefull is foremost in my mind these days. I guess it’s easy to lose that tiny thread of connectedness that convinces you we aren’t in this thing alone after all. Maybe this is why I love to craft little communes out of neighbors and random children and stray friends–”unintentional community” as my friend Anne calls it. All the perks of the intentional variety without any of the meetings.

Yesterday I wandered up the hill to Mark and Meryl’s to turn over the events of the last few days and rummage around for something yummy to eat. Meryl came out with some dark chocolate almond bark from Trader Joe’s and regular dark in case I wasn’t feeling up to nuts. Mark couldn’t wait to tell me about a six-piece set of table and chairs complete with umbrella that might be just right for the back patio. He and Meryl took turns telling me the story of seeing it at the Giant, thinking that I might like it. Plus there was the added perk of charging $100 on Mark’s new card–the very same card that promised him an airline voucher before the end of August if he charged a total of five hundred!

“I said, ‘Go for it!’ ” Meryl said. “We’ll just pay it off and cut that baby up in September!” I loved the storytelling, the candor.

We moved on to other subjects, but when I wandered back down the hill after an hour or so, Mark said: “If you think you might be interested in that patio furniture, we can go over together.” Not five minutes later Meryl showed up at my house and flopped on my couch. “Mark really wants to buy you that table,” she said, pure delight in her voice. “Do you want to go now? I wasn’t going to go but now I think I might.” Yes, yes, of course! I’ve wanted patio furniture for as long as I can remember. Especially when you are making it this easy for me to say yes.

A half an hour later we were playing musical chairs with the guys from Giant, trying to get my lovely new patio set in the car without me or Meryl having to give up our seats. In the end, we managed to get all the chairs in the trunk and the long rectangular table in the back seat. The only glitch was I had to sit cross-legged in the back with the table making a perfect taxi-like barrier between me and my fairy godparents in the front. No worries! I told Mark I felt like I had won a contest or something. “I think you did,” he said, eyes sparkling, a little mischief in his voice as he chauffeured me home.

Minutes later, Dave and Mark unloaded the car and put everything together while Meryl and I went to pull fresh baked bread out of their oven. Then we sat around the brand new table and ate the bread hot, even though it was so humid you could hardly breathe.

After that everything felt a little bit lighter.

Isn’t it funny how Hope shows up when you least expect it, reminding you that it would be a mistake to give up on magic or the down deep confidence that there’s more holding us than we can ever imagine? Riding in the backseat, like a third grader on a special outing, I felt less afraid to let my heart fill up with kindness, less scared to allow my soul to take her fair share of Hope and then some.

Just knowing Mark and Meryl were thinking of me and that they imagined my happiness so clearly in those lovely green chairs was more–so much more–than enough.