Here’s the thing. I just can’t get worked up about anything right now. In this moment, with a sick child, a looming deadline, overdue bills and a cold house, I am consumed with hope. Even rolling back Daylight Savings Time, a dreary and depressing occurrence as solar light and heat become scarcer ‘round the Northwest, hasn’t got me down.

Georgia has a lullaby CD that we play as she drifts off to sleep. The song that gets me every night is one by Frances England called “Little Bright Star.”

And this world feels so much more beautiful
And happier now that you’re here with me
And this world feels so much more hopeful
I’ve got peace of mind for the first time now that you’re here

Every night I let myself feel hopeful for the world, hopeful for Georgia’s generation. Every night I realize that despite all the dire realities of global warming, all the concerns of world politics and the financial crisis that will greet her peers, I have hope that they will make it through. The world will still have beauty and there will be animals. There will be a new, bright generation of children with unimaginable gifts and ideas and ways of seeing. We want everything to be easier for our children, and we don’t want to leave them with less than we had, but even if we do, there will be something to live for. It may not be what we imagine, it may not be what we had hoped, but there will be love and beauty and joy. There will be a chance to make things better, somehow. There will be hope.

Tonight I’m not thinking about consumer culture, or hybrid cars, or changing light bulbs, or organic food. Tonight I am feeling hope. There is possibility. Groundbreaking thoughts have been thought, have lined up, a change is not only in the air, but has clicked. Voices have been heard and their ideas aren’t just possible, they are impossible to ignore. We can’t go back, and even if things don’t turn out exactly as I hope, I believe that the best in people has been stirred. We’ve felt hope, we’ve felt the tickling of real change, we know we have to do something to leave a better legacy for our children.

Tonight I’m thinking about all the little bright stars, and hoping the world becomes what they deserve. 

Photo credit: jimkster