Abundant Hope
All year I've been writing that life is hard, and hope is something we must work to create. But what if that's just a story? What if there's another one?
Create Hope, Mom always said, and for the last ten years, and especially for the last twelve months, since this story began, I have tried to pick up Mom’s mantle, to create hope no matter what.
Every story begins with an “I Want” song, and this was mine, a year ago:
Create Hope, Mom always said. But what does hope look like, when she has been gone so long? What does hope look like, when the ground we always thought was stable — the love of a parent, Democracy, the planet itself — is in fact sinking where we stand?
How do you tell the whole truth, the often terrifying truth, and still create hope?
Is it possible to climb that mountain, instead of going around it?
I’ve been trying to find the answer to that question for the last few years. It’s taken me to some unexpected places and with the recognition that I am tempting the universe again, I’m going to give this another shot. One week at a time, counting down to January 26, 2024
— me, tempting the universe last January, now 16 days left til deadline
So… how has it been going?
I have tried to lean into the hard parts, because a story only works if it is true, and I am deeply aware of all the hard stuff happening in the world. Climate change. Democracy crumbling. Cancer. Civil wars. All of it.
Creating hope is hard, and creating this substack has been hard too. Sometimes I have struggled to find the words. Sometimes I have struggled to articulate the meaning.
Ten weeks I haven’t been able to create anything at all.
So what has been the point of this story? What is the purpose of this story?
The purpose of a story is, always, transformation. The hero transforms by the end of the story, and the hero is always you. We read stories because they change us, we leave a story different than we were when it began. Sometimes this change is for the worse, so often lately the stories we tell leave us weaker and more afraid and angrier, but I am Betty Castellani’s daughter, and I promised that this would be a story about hope, no matter what.
I promised all of us, this story will make more of you. And I promised (sigh) to do it by January 26, 2024.
So. What story am I really telling here?
There’s one obvious story. It’s the story that Mom told her whole life. Life is hard. Hope is scarce. Everything is falling apart. You have to fight so hard. You have to earn hope with every inch, with your blood, your sweat, your righteousness, your faith.
I could tell that story. A story of resilience, of determination, of don’t give up no matter what, a story of just try harder, run faster, do better. I told that story for ages, in my own life. It’s a safe story, in that who would disagree with me?
It’s just…
I’m not sure I believe that story is true.
Or at least, I’m not sure it’s the only thing that’s true.
"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better."
- Albert Einstein
I was running in the woods with Huck the other day, it was a cold weekday morning, and we were the only people in sight in the woods. A tree had freshly fallen heavy across the trail. I saw it, and the old trope echoed in my mind, if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it…
The answer came to me so quick, so sharp, what an ignorant question.
This tree has lived every inch of its life in this forest. This tree has never moved from this spot. This tree knows this patch of earth from the tip of the sky to the depths of the soil. This tree knows all the birds that travel through, and shelters them. This tree knows all the hikers and bikers and families who have passed along this trail for decades. This tree has heard the arguments, and been scratched by squirrels, and pounded through rain, and dried dusty with thirst.
When the tree falls, if no one hears it, that is foolish, the forest hears every tree that falls. The birds. The squirrels. The other trees. The soil. The leaves. The forest sings praises for every tree that falls. The forest gives thanks for every tree that falls.
No tree ever falls unheard.
“We are bathing in mystery and confusion…That will always be our destiny. The universe will always be much richer than our ability to understand it.”
— Carl Sagan
The world is living through a loneliness epidemic. We are all so afraid, and we are all so alone, and there are a million things the scientists and psychologists and public health advocates urge us to do to resolve it. There’s infrastructure and economics and creating hope is hard, and life is hard, but do you know what else you can do?
Step outside.
This is a true story, and I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. When we feel lonely, when we feel sad, and we go outside, we feel better. Our nervous system settles. Our beta waves, our stress waves, go silent. Our inflammation and our blood pressure lowers. Something in us says, we are home. We are not alone.
Biologists have only recently come to understand, there is no such thing as one tree. Everything is connected, beneath the surface. What looks like one tree is actually just one signal of an entire forest, an entire root system, living together, breathing together, supporting each other, in ways that scientists are barely beginning to understand. Trees recognize each other as species. Trees warn other trees of enemy invasions.
This tree sends messages to other trees with scents and energy in the air, and through its root system, via mushrooms, in a system known as the “Wood Wide Web.”
Creating hope, combating loneliness, can feel so hard.
But what if we are always connected, and all we have to do is see?
“What if the source of creativity is always there knocking patiently on the doors of our perception, waiting for us to unbolt the locks?”
— Rick Rubin
This summer, we were at the lake, and in a quiet moment, I looked at a row of trees on the edge of the river bank. The bank was eroding, and the trees were tipping over, tilting into the water. They were moving at the speed of trees, so maybe it would be years before they fell, or maybe it would be months.
I chose one tree to focus on and I looked at it closely. Many of its roots had already separated from the soil, and were suspended above water, the steady ground was gone. The tree did not have infinite seasons remaining. Maybe one good storm would topple it into the water, out of the sun forever.
And I thought, is this tree afraid to fall?
And the answer felt so simple. No. Falling is a natural part of being a tree.
Even more than that: Trees don’t vanish when they fall. When a tree falls in the forest, it feeds the forest for decades. As they decay, their wood and their roots and the moss and the mushrooms that sprout from them, nourishes generations of life.
A fallen tree makes fire, the source of heat and warmth and endless fuel.
A fallen tree makes paper, the vessel for endless stories.
When the tree dies, its greatest contributions to the world are just beginning.
Creating hope can be so hard.
But is hope so hard to see?
“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
— Unknown
Mom worked so hard. All her life she worked so hard. We all feel like we have to work so hard, God, I always think I am not doing enough, how can I help this person I love, and that community that is suffering, and this political system that is crumbling, how can I help?
Mom never thought she was doing enough to help, she always worried that she wasn’t truly worthy of love unless she was perfect, but if I could reach out to her now, if I could go back to her with maybe insight that I didn’t have ten years ago, I would take her outside.
And I would say, holding her pale hand, bony and fingernails bitten, Mom, look.
Look at this tree. This one. What do you think of the job it’s doing, as a tree?
Do you want it to try harder?
Of course not. That’s foolish. This tree is doing exactly what it is meant to do.
And it’s doing it perfectly just before our eyes. It’s inhaling carbon dioxide and exhaling oxygen, it’s turning sunlight into food, it’s offering a home for birds and bugs, it’s doing all of that just by being what it was meant to be.
Maybe it’s a shrub. Maybe it’s a redwood. It doesn’t matter. The tree doesn’t have to be anything other than what it was made to be.
And I would say, Mom, do you really think we have to do something special, to deserve hope? To fulfill our promise?
Do we have to be different?
Or do we only have to be?
We feel that we should keep moving, keep pushing, keep working, trying harder.
But what if that’s just a story?
What if all we have to do is be who we are, who we were meant to be?
What if all we have to do is offer shelter to those who seek shelter beneath our branches?
What if it is not only the trees that continue to change the world long after they fall?
A Plot Twist I Didn’t See Coming
I was writing this essay on Sunday, at 3:21 pm, and I know that because in the precise moment that I was writing about hope, and whether it was something that we had to create, as Mom always insisted, or whether maybe it was something that was all around us, just as I was writing about what I would like to say to Mom about hope, my phone pinged with this text message from my dear friend Darrie. Darrie was one of Mom’s long term survivors, but more than that, she has been part of our family. This is what she sent to me.
I don’t have all the answers. I’m not an omniscient narrator. But I am a storyteller, and I do have some plot twists still to come, before this story ends.
(And apparently Mom does too.)
We’ve been on a journey together all year, you and me. There are sixteen days left to go, until we reach the sea. I think we can trust the current.
But stop, for a moment, just where we are. Look at the picture above. Look at the world all around you. Can you almost smell the ocean? We’re nearly there.
All year I’ve been talking about how important it is to see the river. But just for a moment, take a breath. Don’t feel the need to create anything.
Try to see the tree.
.
This is the latest chapter in a year-long saga of love, grief and the stories we tell to survive it all. Subscribe to get new chapters (almost) every week, counting down to January 26, 2024, when one story ends but another…
That was beautiful Robyn! I felt such a sense of calm in you and reading it brought such a sense of calm for me. Thank you my sweet friend.