Hope Ness

Empty words are the enemies of hope

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This one’s a no-brainer, right?

“Hope,” I mean, as the Word Press Daily Prompt, and this blog, called Finding Hope Ness.

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hope

How many times have I said I’m “surrounded by hope,” as in Hope Bay, the Hope Bay Nature Reserve, Hope Bay Forest, and Hope Ness itself? That’s a rhetorical question, of course. But, in case you’re a first-time reader, the answer is lots of times; too many, as if saying it often enough, taking advantage of the coincidence of location, makes it real.

There is nothing more precious and yet so hard to find than hope. And nothing more sentimentalized.

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In praise of daffodils

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The morning sun, yes, the sun, is rising through the Hope Bay Forest which comes almost right up to my front door. And there they are – in part of the large garden of perennials a strong, extraordinary woman planted many years ago with so much care and devotion – a “host of golden daffodils,” risen and now blooming.

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Daffodils lovingly planted many years ago by Wilma Butchart

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That dull calamity

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So this is where it ends, in solitude picking up the pieces as best I can, which isn’t very good at this point. I push myself to do something, anything: I do, therefore I am.

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self-portrait, flash and mirror. I’m in there somewhere

I go down into the rough, old, stone-foundation basement of this old farm house to do some clean-up. I’m trying to pick up where I left off more than two years ago when we bought this place, before everything, finally, went wrong.

There was a “we” then. Now there’s just a “me.” And that’s not enough anymore. “What dreams may come” indeed. Continue reading →

Bad news, or a gift?

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Something happened yesterday, quite unexpected, and initially very upsetting. Maybe it still is; but I’m trying to process it in an open-minded way, rather than accept it as simply disastrous news and let it get me all down and discouraged.

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One must read the signs

An update. As of today, the news I got isn’t as bad as I thought it was yesterday when I got the mail, and then when I made a phone call to a government office that seemed to confirm a “worst case scenario.” But another phone call to the same office this morning, and a conversation with a different “agent” put it in a much better light.

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