I created the blackout poem above years ago. Found those words shining out, above the others on the page immediately and that poem was born. If you’re not seeing the image and are instead listening to me read this, it says this:
We found love in words, in Hope. We are a single thought in a delicate world.
We are a single thought in a delicate world. Delicate feels terrifyingly appropriate today, this final Sunday before an election in the United States of America that will serve to shape the state of things for years to come. Years. We hang on a spider’s thread and we blow in the breeze of uncertainty, and all we can do, all we can offer, is hope. Just hope.
How appropriate that the thread we dangle from is one of spider’s silk, is one so nearly invisible but, again we hope, so ferociously strong, as I re-read E.B. White’s stunning letter to a man that wrote him a letter in which he explained and expressed his very bleak hope for humanity in the future to come. I read this letter from time to time, much more since 2016, as a reminder to myself that hope is such a daring thing, such a vital thing. I present his letter in its entirety for you here today, because I believe it’s something everyone needs to read. Here is what he said:
North Brooklin, Maine,
30 March 1973
Dear Mr. Nadeau:
As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness.
Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society — things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather suddenly. It is quite obvious that the human race has made a queer mess of life on this planet. But as a people we probably harbor seeds of goodness that have lain for a long time waiting to sprout when the conditions are right. Man’s curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him into deep trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to claw his way out.
Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.
Sincerely,
E. B. White
“Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time.” Hope is the thing. If you’ve been here long enough you’ll know, I speak of hope more than almost anything else, save love.
I know that in any disaster, any terrifying ordeal, we’re presented with two choices: We can look at all the ways things went wrong, point all the fingers at all those who we think let us down, at the world who took advantage, the systems of society that abandoned us, the future we cannot see as anything other than catastrophically bleak…OR, OR, we can go another way.
We can do what Fred Roger’s mother instructed him to do: “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” As long as there is one, only one, that is willing to help, we can hold onto hope. Why? Why only one? Because we, they, all of us, can not only look for the helpers, we can become them. One can become two, two can turn into four, four into eight, and exponentially we can rise. Together. As one thing again.
I will not sugarcoat things, I will not try to lie to you (how funny that the blackout poem comes from a page called “Lies & Lying) and tell you that times have not indeed been bleak for quite a long time. We’ve endured, as a nation, as a planet, more hardships than we’re all collectively built to handle, and the next few days are indeed frightening.
We sit on a precipice, we teeter on the edge of a razor blade, and how Tuesday pans out, I do believe will help determine which direction we fall. To safety, or to so much more hardship. I will again not sugarcoat, I will again not lie, no matter what happens we still have so much work left to do. It will be massively difficult, it will be trying, it will be exhausting, and it will require compromise, compassion, and an empathy that I don’t know we’ve ever had to show before.
But.
But, we can still hold out hope that the light that’s been building, and I know you’ve felt it, I know you’ve seen it, is the light that can illuminate the darkness we’ve been so deeply saturated in.
I don’t believe that darkness will ever be driven away, I don’t believe any amount of light can annihilate it, can kill it from this place forever. In truth, I don’t believe it possible, and I also don’t believe we’re meant to. For light to shine it must have darkness to juxtapose it, as all things must have a foil. Together over the months we’ve come through, I’ve felt that light growing though, I’ve felt us holding it safely in our hands and passing it onto others who forgot its warmth. I have felt us igniting each others flames with our own, felt the glow on our faces after a long, long time of chill upon our cheeks, and I feel Hopeful.
This is what E.B. White was saying, this is what he meant when he said that all we need for hope to spread is “one upright man” or “one compassionate woman.” This is what I mean when I say I agree with him, and that this scene is not a desolate one.
I do not know what will befall us in the days to come, I do not know what will come in the days that follow those, but I will do what Mr. Rogers would have done, I will look for the helpers, I will look for those who peddle hope instead of despair, love instead of hate.
All that’s left is hope, all that’s left to do is wait, and hold it tightly like infant bird just fallen from nest. We must cradle it, we must offer it our tenderness, we must believe it was built to fly, and will fly again. All that’s left to do is do what E.B. already told us to do…
Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.
I’ll see you on the other side, no matter what comes.
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There is a darkness
that only the light of hope
can illuminate.
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