Have Ourselves a Hope-filled Holiday and New Year!
Max, my son, graduated from Prescott College, Sunday, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Studies with an emphasis in Research Ecology and Studio Arts. A long hoped for, joyous occasion for which 16 family and adopted family members gathered. Prescott College is an extraordinary college, peopled by students, staff and faculty oozing purpose. And, as befitting the school, this was no ordinary listen-for-your-name-march-across-the-stage-take-a-diploma-shake-hands-leave….throw-your-mortarboard-you-did-it-yeah! graduation. This was a weekend long celebration. Forty one students officially graduated Sunday; 37 attended the ceremony. Each of those 37 students was honored with a one-minute speech by her or his faculty adviser and then spoke for one-minute. You can share a lot of information, experiences, reflections, gratitude into a minute. It was a long, emotionally-charged ceremony. I left feeling the way I did after watching It’s A Wonderful Life for the first time—and I sooooooooo wanted to be a student again. During his welcome speech, Prescott College President, Dan Garvey, said (and I paraphrase):
“We can live about 3 weeks without food, 3 days without water, 3 minutes without oxygen...but we can’t survive for even a second without hope…”
HOPE: It is why we do….everything! Because we have hopes for the next second, the next minute, the next day, the next year and after that…
As mothers, we hope to see our children grow up to live the lives they dream for themselves. I am blessed to see my children, Max and Lexi, doing exactly that.
As writers, we write with the hope of transferring our ideas into words on a page. Some hopes are simple: let me write it down so I won’t forget. Some are complex: let me arrange these words in a lyrical, provocative, entertaining order. Many go beyond: after I dredge up the best words to convey my ideas, set these words on the page, arrange them and rearrange them, pleeeeease let someone else read them and understand and feel and connect with the thoughts I am hoping to convey. Some are even loftier: let an editor connect so strongly with my writing that she/he wants to publish it and thus make my ideas accessible to others.
We breathe, eat, drink, strive, because we hope to live. We write because we hope to make connections. To twist a phrase from my family’s favorite holiday movie: Hope is all you need!
May ours be a joyful holiday and hope-filled New Year!