It seems to be a pattern, the morning, I’m boiling water for oatmeal, NPR on the radio in the kitchen, and I hear this line: “so many hopes and dreams were smashed and rearranged.”
To smash something involves a focused force, an unforeseen drop of a fragile thing, one of those moments when there is a discernible and distinct pause, a holding of one’s breath before the hit and the shatter and the scatter of pieces. Depending on the sentimental and, I suppose, monetary value of the item and severity of the break, one might gather the pieces and rearrange them, glue them back together….or, determine it's not worth the effort and throw it away.
Hopes rearranged are the stuff of tv movies of the week and memoirs that get Oprah’s seal. At the foundation of the rearranging is a hope you can’t toss out. In many instances those types of hopes are the ones we reserve for children and maybe some relationships, ideas and ideals of community, freedom, democracy, church.
To rearrange that which has been smashed takes time and precision, one really has to want to put it back together and the effort it takes can become obsessive and it’s tiring, stretches the muscles, strains the eyes, makes some people ask why are you wasting your time.
Though brittle and in times surprisingly breakable, hopes and dreams have a buoyancy to them, they keep afloat. Yet, during these days of wars and rumors of war, an empire nearing collapse, othering everyone who is not like us, widening gaps between wealthy and poor I recall the song lyric, “where hope is currency.” What can one buy with hope currency? Do we save it for a bigger investment? Is it possible to spend it foolishly and if so when does one realize it? Is hope the coin of our realm?