Hope Springs Eternal

While I was talking to a friend the other night, we both used that phrase more than once. It covered a myriad of topics - the lack of dateable men, things going wrong in multiples. But hope is what keeps you putting your feet on the floor each morning - then carries you through your day, one foot in front of the other sometimes. Not that my days are bleak; they are not. Some are more difficult than others but I am always hopeful that the next day will be better.

Spring is another comforting word. Spring is the hope that gets you through the long winter. It is what springs (sorry) to mind when I look at my little herb bed and see the sorrel, mint and loveage coming up. Gone with the brown and dead - up with the green and living! The loveage makes me think of hope. The loveage was given to me as a start by a friend who recently battled a brain tumor. She was and is the most gentle and lovely woman I know - an artist and weaver of so much talent it leaves me in awe. Never once, through the long ordeal, did I hear her complain, ask "why me?", or lose her sense of humor. The first year I planted my loveage start, a neighbor's dog dug it up three times! It survived. This past winter, the bird feeder fell on it. It was a bitter cold winter with not a lot of snow on that portion of the bed. But, here it is - now two sprouts. It makes me happy and hopeful to look at it every morning. And I am hopeful that my fencing gets done this year, that the duck eggs hatch, that my friends will be healthy and happy for all of their lives, that I will find my soul mate wherever he is. As for 'eternity', I am not a believer in eternity - more so in the preciousness of the time you do have.