Sometimes Hope is a New Dress
In early Oct. 2020, a few weeks after my birthday, I spent a day wandering around town, out and about for the first time in a long time. Savoring a lovely Sushi lunch with a friend on a big, open porch and on that warm, fall day, it was a treat to again experience something that pre-covid, seemed so ordinary, so “normal.”
Afterwards, I picked through racks of used books, art supplies, and then found my way to a consignment shop that was utterly new to me.
(@urbanexchangenh) OMG – A visual and consumer feast! Dozens of delicious pieces from a favorite designer that were so well priced, I couldn’t resist buying myself many birthday presents! In that hopeful moment, on that happy post birth-day, I could imagine wearing my fancy, new, black dress — out for dinner, to theater, a gallery opening, a holiday party. And then things closed down again, and so…The dress is still hanging —unworn (of course, happily, it did have a life before me and I like to imagine it was a wild, fascinating one!)
I’ve decided to keep my dress on the Outside of my closet, facing me, where I can admire it every day, touch the tissuey layers of fabric. Dream of someday. This dress still feels like hope. A beautiful reminder. It calls to me…SOON…we will dine out, party, gather and enjoy. Perhaps life will not be exactly “normal,” still, it will be FAMILIAR. Soon, our lives will feel more like something precious we once held, and loved, and sometimes struggled inside, returned to us. My dress waits patiently, like a passport, a ticket, a friend — and is ready, as soon as the world is.
What’s helping you feel hopeful these days?
Photo Credit: @anniespratt on Unsplash