These are unsettling times. Not the first time some of us have experienced unsettling times, mind you. But if age grants us a certain perspective, it also grants those of us who are older a feeling of vulnerability. Amidst all the talk of moving to another country or even another state, the reality is, we mature types have to consider how easily we can get proper healthcare or how easily we can expect to make and keep friends, the absolute sine qua non for getting old.
Early on, I developed a wariness about the world around me. I understood that people could and would do unspeakable things to other people. I learned that words could wound. I recognized events beyond my control could deeply affect me, even as I let myself get affected. I tried to protect myself with logic and fact, which only went so far. At my core, I was an emotional type.
I came up with an image of a house, i.e. my safe space. A cottage somewhere in Switzerland, I think, with comfortable beds, terrific views, and a dog. The windows were framed by heavy shutters I could close against discomfort, despair, or anything in between.
I retain that image, even as I’ve grown to realize shutting oneself away only works until it doesn’t.
When my husband was killed on 9/11, I needed a plan to pull me back from the brink. The Serenity Prayer (minus the divine supplication) provided a key to peace, if only I could find the strength to accept what I could change, the courage to change what I could change, and the wisdom to know the difference.
A worthy goal but not a way forward. I needed hope. Not traditional hope with its dependence on guaranteed outcomes, but a more flexible version that might reconcile uncertainty with a cautious optimism. A version available to the spiritual and the skeptical, the wounded and the resilient. Me. All of us.
I called it hope in small doses, which is also what I called the book that came out of my journey to find what I named “reasonable happiness in unreasonable times,” which I then used as my subtitle. Cherie Siebert provided the beautiful photos.
Although plenty has changed in the years since the first edition was released, plenty has not. We still have so-called leaders claiming to have solutions for every problem. Certainly is comforting, absolute certainty even more so. You and I may know it’s a chimera, but enough people are buying into it—have always bought into it—that it has dangerous implications. The alternative is not to reject hope and close the shutters permanently but to look out and wonder, “What if?”
Hope in Small Doses doesn’t have all the answers. It does have questions, suggestions, discoveries, and plenty of anecdotes. I like to think there’s something in there for everyone, but of course that isn’t true. I’m okay with that, since I understand there are no guarantees. There is, however, the possibility that you will find something valuable to guide you through the tough times within and without. I certainly hope you do.
Hope in Small Doses: Reasonable Happiness in Unreasonable Times is on sale at various venues
in e-book and print. Both versions are deeply discounted on Amazon through the end of the summer.