"Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops... at all." ~Emily Dickinson


Hope (n): a word that has been vacant from my vocabulary of late but has returned. When we are children and full of dreams and the idea that the world holds everything that those dreams contain, hope is abundant. My parents always told me that I could do anything I set my mind to. That placed in me the hope that life would work out. It always worked out for them, even when faced with hardship.


Growing up reading things like "The Secret Garden," "Pride and Prejudice" and "The Little Princess" and in a house full of girls, I never thought that I couldn't accomplish something. I had confidence and the world was wide open in front of me.


I've been looking back and thinking and it's amazing how the universe seems to come together and lift you up and provide for you when you provide for it. During most of my life I can remember having a door closed in my face and turning around to see a window open. If times were hard financially, something I had forgotten about would appear or a new opportunity would unfold. It's hard, though, in the thick of everything, to keep these positives in the forefront of my mind.

As people, I believe we focus on the one negative rather than the mountain of positives we experience. It's much like having a blister on one toe. If we could somehow focus on the 9 toes that do not have blisters, the pain of the toe with the blister would not seem so great. However, the blistered toe is much more prominent as we walk or run. To train the mind to focus on the blister-less toes is an advanced skill.

Giving to the universe (and others) and allowing it to give back to us replenishes the hope that we have as young girls reading Jane Austen and Frances Hodgson Burnett; the bird that sits on our soul, sings and gives wings to our dreams. Giving to oneself does not have near the same return on the investment. Small investments have small returns and big investments yield exponentially larger returns.

It is my HOPE that I may give HOPE to others and that their HOPE will be passed on. When I see HOPE, the bird perched on my soul sings more loudly and my dreams take to the air.