Hitchhiker

Here is my new epiphany: hope is a seed that hitchhikes on our souls, and is carried far and wide, and it will take root if given a chance, and something good will grow. Hope is a traveling seed, and I want to be a host. There is no other way.

Strange times. Someone told me that the local Costcos are selling out of toilet paper, face masks, and Pepsi. Priority goods for the apocalypse. And it’s Super Tuesday, with a newly narrowed Democratic field, and the practical advice is to vote for Joe, and hopefully avoid an election day showdown between the orange clown-king and an angry old socialist who promises plenty but can’t deliver.

My tribe is traveling and checking in. When I last heard from my friend Diane, she was hurdling down Route 66, two hours from Amarillo. Kelley and Bill left this morning for New Zealand, Cornelia is in Berlin, and my daughter is in Paris. Connect these dots and a thousand others for a map of my heart. Thinking bigger still, these words of astronomer Jill Tarter come to mind: “We are part of a billion-year lineage of wandering stardust.”

All interconnected, I am certain of it. Light in search of sense, perhaps. But as individuals, we are not given the luxury of time, and so we are obliged to write it down, pass it along, remember, stay true, and build upon the learning. How is it that we have strayed so far?

Hope is a seed, clinging to me now, and may it catch onto you as well. Let’s share stories and find feracious soil and grow a small good start to better days.