Secretly and Hopelessly Optimistic

I sometimes worry that if I go too long without writing a post, my writing muscles will seize up and atrophy.  The idea of it frightens me, so I thought I’d better scoot on over here to say hello!

I’m having a good week—a big talk, lunch with friends, listening to raindrops splash against the windows.  I do want to tell you more about the big talk, which I have concluded was a success, but more importantly, I want to tell you about the celebratory rice pudding I made the night after the talk.  It was good.  Next time I’m making a double batch!

The thought that keeps running through my head this week is this: we must learn to be our own advocates.  We have to believe in ourselves.  But we also have to ask ourselves the hard questions such as: Am I on the right path?  Am I making my decisions with intention?  Or am I just reacting to external circumstances?  I know the recession makes it harder for us not to react to circumstances, and believe me, I am waiting for the economy to shrug itself back to consciousness and start chugging along again.

If there’s anything I’ve learned over the last four months, it’s that we cannot let ourselves be afraid to ask the hard questions.  And if we decide that we know what we want, we can’t be afraid to go for it, leaping into the air and trusting that we will land on two feet.

For me, this week marks the end of a long hard summer.  It was an important summer that tested my endurance and my optimism.  It demonstrated to me that I’ve actually got plenty of endurance and optimism.  It also demonstrated to me that a Saturday afternoon nap can fix what ails you, that baking peanut butter cookies is sometimes the answer, and that I am bigger than my fears.

You are bigger than your fears too.  I just know it.

Call me a hopeless optimist.  It’s hard, in these grim days of shrinking budgets and job insecurities, to be an optimist.  But I am.  I look around at the growing momentum of farmers’ markets and local business, of people declaring that communities matter more than fat paychecks, of people asking hard questions about values, finances, and happiness, and I just know that we’re only at the beginning of something great.  Of something huge.  And I want to be there for it and to be a part of it.

Let’s be great together, shall we?

About today’s photos:

* The first two were taken in the Holistic Garden on campus, one of my favorite places to visit.

* The third is a photo of a few of my favorite shirts, drying.  I bought the pink one in Michigan a few weeks ago, at a really great thrift store.  I just love it.  And I’m wearing it today!