A Little Bit of Hope

This month has, in a lot of ways, defied words for me.

Reading social media posts on January first, a lot of people seemed surprised that things didn’t miraculously get better with the turn of the year. We’re still in the grips of a pandemic. We still lacked leadership and resources. We were still hearing divisive and negative things from Washington.

In spite of the way the November election went, I was afraid to hope. And things got worse before they got better. I watched in silent horror the events of January 6. I was worried that even worse might happen at the Inauguration.

So I worried, and I knit, and what I didn’t do was know what to write.

At the Inauguration Wednesday, nothing I feared came to pass. Instead we once again marked the peaceful transfer of power in our country. But so much more than that happened for me. It felt like marking a transition from darkness to light, from confusion to transparency, from chaos to order.

I cried when our first female and BIPOC Vice President walked down the steps. When Joe Biden was sworn in I let out a breath that it feels like I’ve been holding for four years. I cried again when Amanda Gorman read her Inaugural poem, “The Hill We Climb.” I cried a lot.

All that evening I saw updates on my news feed: Biden was signing Executive Orders at the speed of light, undoing so many harms of the past four years and implementing much-needed COVID relief and vaccine distribution plans. Instead of indignation and doom, my Twitter feed was full of Bernie’s mitten memes. Is there an opposite of Doomscrolling? If so, I was doing it. I was joyscrolling.

Today, someone pointed out that it was the 21st day of the 21st year of the 21st century, and I thought, “This is the day that feels like a new time. This is my new year – a new era, a new beginning.”

I’m feeling hopeful again, and the words are coming back. I hope you are hopeful today, too.