The Color of Hope

I woke up this morning flushed with the fluttering heart of a prey animal

The world is grey. darkening deeper still

The sun is gone and I need a light. Anyone. Someone

The internet told me that young sunflowers turn, tracing the arc of the sun, and when the clouds hide the light they face each other

Then the internet told me this was fake news

I don't know what is real through this distorting lens that looks darkly into the swirling tempest

and I have no sunflowers of my own to see the truth for myself

I'm far from my home where they bloom beside the highway under the mountain.

I have no garden, no dirt to belong to

I am adrift in a cold grey apartment. Suffocating minimalism

Outside snow scatters across the woods of another land. strange to me

I'll put on my jacket, and pin a sunflower to my coat. Stepping out into the cold and away from the suffocating warmth of isolation, I am looking for connection in flat customer service hellscape of transactional space.

If you're lost like me, maybe we can still find each other in the swirling grey

Know me by the little yellow hope of the sunflower on my coat

We don't have to endure the night alone. Whatever the internet may say

We can choose to turn away from the dark. Whisper hopeful stories to each other to pass through this night

Once I almost lost faith. I began to believe I was too different, that I would never feel the sense of belonging others seemed to feel without struggle. I almost froze out there in the cold transactional expanse between safe isolation and genuine community. You don't have to deal with all of this on your own.

Look for the ones who are kind, who hold the door or make room for you on the bus, who help because they can. We are kin. Stars of a lost constellation looking for the pattern of home. It takes work to build a community worth belonging to.

Remember the sun's energy is always part of us, night or day we carry that warmth in the lattice of our bone and tissue

Remember your people are out here, beyond this cyberspace if you follow your True North.

Remember you don't have to be alone

The sun will rise again. Until then, let's face each other and remember the color of hope.