Our twin grandchildren just celebrated their 13th birthday as thriving and loving young adults full of potential and promise. Passing this milestone made me think back to the first 105 days of their lives which were spent in the NICU. Each day we hung onto the hope that we might be able to celebrate who they would become one day. When they turned one, I wrote a poem entitled the Sun has Come Out describing their experience and our experience of their first year.
And now, we are all entering a new phase in our lives. My grandkids, as teenagers, will have to navigate all the changes and challenges facing them over the next seven years. And all of us, as inheritors of the election results, will have to face each new day of sycophant surprises, sickening decisions, and a scary future. Given all of that, I was reminded of how important it is to hang on to hope even when life seems particularly bleak.
A song by Mumford and Sons, The Cave, helped us get through the first years of our grandkids lives, and it seems especially relevant now. I will share selective lyrics in this post and comment on how they relate to the current chaos we are confronting. I’m planning to learn how to play this song on my guitar and plan to sing it every day to help me get through this crisis. I hope the lyrics of this song and the words will help you as well. I highly recommend that you open the link above and listen to it.
The first stanza perfectly describes how I feel now:
“It’s empty in the valley of your heart
The sun, it rises slowly as you walk
Away from all the fears
And the faults you’ve left behind.”
My heart is broken and empty as I process the news every day and witness the appointment of hopelessly unqualified people to assume roles of real consequence in our government. I’m reminded to walk slowly as the sun rises each day, to resist my fears, and to own my faults, hoping that this too will pass without too much damage and that someday it will all be behind us.
A shortened version of the second stanza takes the experience to a deeper level:
“The harvest left no food for you to eat
I know the shame in your defeat.”
Having lost the White House, the Senate, the House, and the Supreme Court, it’s hard to find enough nourishment in what’s left to carry on. I’m also left dealing with the shame of our defeat. I remained cautiously optimistic that Harris would win despite her late start, the rushed appointment that left no time to vet another candidate, the burden of her incumbency status, and her inability to articulate a compelling vision that differentiated her on the economy and immigration. Given the electoral results across the country, it appears that the blue coasts were seen as not only blindly arrogant but also infuriatingly condescending. While it is true that too many people in the red middle of the country were willfully, even gleefully, ignorant, those of us who thought this outcome was impossible given the character of the candidate and his criminal record need to own the shame of our defeat. To the extent that we were arrogant and condescending, we helped make it so.
Returning to the song, the chorus predicts how I hope to get through this experience just as it inspired me to get through our NICU experience.
“But I will hold onto hope
And I won’t let you choke
On the noose around your neck
And I’ll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways”
Those lyrics capture my sentiments exactly. I feel like we now have a noose around our neck, and I feel deep pain for the suffering around the world that this decision may cause. In spite of those fears, I still need to hang onto hope and find the strength to change my ways. I freely admit that choice is easier for me than it is for most folks. I’m almost 80 years old. I’m financially secure. I’m still in good health. I’m lucky enough to be happily married, to be engaged in several meaningful projects in the community, to have a host of daily practices that consume a good share of my day, and to have the privilege of being deeply connected to my kids and grandkids. Holding onto hope, however, will be harder if the noose tightens and the pain increases.
The song ends with this prescription:
“I have other things to fill my time
You take what is yours and I’ll take mine
Now let me at the truth
Which will refresh my broken mind.
So tie me to a post and block my ears
I see widows and orphans through my tears
I know my call despite my faults
And despite my growing fears.
So come out of your cave walking on your hands
And see the world hanging upside down
And sing all you want
Cause I need freedom now
And I need to know how
To live my life as it’s meant to be”
Whenever I’m working with a client, I like to think of three phases: Describe, Predict, Prescribe. For me, this song not only describes our experience (a noose around our neck), but also predicts the outcome (find strength and change our ways) as well as prescribes what we need to do (hold on to hope, come out of our caves, fill our time seeking the truth, refresh our broken minds, sing all we want, and live our lives as they are meant to be). That prescription may serve us better than all the Prozac, Xanax, Lipipro, or Ecstacy (MDMA or Molly) we can take to get through this pain. We need to come out of whatever caves or bubbles we live in that might be described as arrogant, condescending, or elitist. We need to use this time to seek out the truth, to dig deeply for the facts, and to resist getting steamrolled by the sycophants. We need to find ways to refresh our broken minds: go on nature baths, listen to music, write poetry, read books, and make the arts a bigger part of our lives. And yes, we need to sing all we want and live our lives as they are meant to be: kind, loving, respectful, grateful, and joyful.
In a recent post, I discussed the importance of the arts and poetry in helping us navigate difficult situations. In this post, I started with a poem I wrote to my grandkids when they were still babies. Let me end this post by referring you to a poem I wrote on strength that may offer some insights on how we get through the next few years.
To be honest, I have many fears about what could happen over the next four years. I’m worried about Israel, Ukraine, Sudan, China, the whole Middle East, and all the countries who will be affected by wars, climate change, and famine. And, of course, I’m worried about the deep divides in our own country. One reason I am still able to hang onto hope is because I strongly believe the arts can still provide a path to peace. I’m shamelessly proud that my older daughter has dedicated her career to finding artful approaches for enhancing education and fostering a sense of belonging. I’ll end with a link to her website. I hope it will give you the hope to carry on. May it be so.
Also published on Medium.
Good, thoughtful stuff here as always, Rick. Thank you for tweaking my brain and my heart once again.