Hope

 

“Hope is a word that you say any day

It’s a dream and it screams in your head”

The House of Love’s Guy Chadwick croons this chorus so majestically from his band’s brilliant 1988 debut album.  This song was on repeat in my mind a lot back then.  I used to sing along, thinking that he was saying “everyday” – not “any day.”  Not that it makes a huge difference.  I have always said the word hope all the freaking time.  In 1988, though my 17 year old self may have denied it then, I had actual genuine hope.  Things weren’t great.  I was battling a lot of self-doubt, loneliness, depression and sleeplessness, but I had goals and dreams and a desire that all of these things would turn around.  There was a future.  Apparently, I did not pay enough to the conclusion of the song:

“It’s a lie on a seat of a night

When you’re bawling like a baby, so alone

Like a baby

It’s not right”

It feels true.  Hope is a liar, a charlatan, and a temptation beckoning us to keep going despite overwhelming evidence of futility and failure.  Hope creates dreams, desires, and expectations that eventually lead to disappointment.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have hope.  It’s alarming how often I say the word: “I hope you have a great weekend!”  “I hope you’re feeling well!”  “I hope you have a nice evening!”  “I hope you get well quick!”  You get the idea.  I do hope these things for the people I say them to.  I want people to thrive, be joyful, content, fulfilled, healthy, excited, and successful in whatever measure they choose.  I’d like those things for myself as well!  It’s the hope part that crushes me.  I have not figured out how to wish for these types of things without feeling completely empty for not achieving them.  

I’ve heard wise people say that life is about the journey – the search for fulfillment, etc. not so much about the achievement.    It makes total sense.  I can logically see and understand that, yet when I look back on my life, it feels like the journey has been about setbacks and frustration.  This is why I blame hope.  Every time I get one of those notions that fill me with daydreams of what could be, I get so thrilled by the idea that I have a difficult time living in the moment.  Once those grand visions start to pass, and reality sets in, my life, as it is, feels that much more distasteful.  I would rather not go through the disappointment, but I have not figured out how to twist that hope faucet tight enough to stop the drip.  If I didn’t have hope, then my stupid mind wouldn’t generate expectations, and theoretically I’d never be disappointed.  Perhaps I would find a clearer route to appreciating what I do have.

 

In 1990 Bad Religion released the song “The Positive Aspect of Negative Thinking,” (from Against the Grain) the title of which has become a mantra for me.  This under a minute shredder surgically cuts our cultural egos down to size and expresses utter disgust at everything that has grown too big for its britches.  Yet, it is optimistic and insightful for recognizing what’s wrong.  For one could say that theoretically we cannot correct our mistakes until we recognize them.  On a personal level, I love this notion, because it fits my dream of no expectations, no illusions, no disappointments and occasional pleasant surprises.  And yes, I am fully aware that I am writing about hoping for no hope.  It’s not lost on me.  This is simply a long winded way of saying that I am exhausted, like so many, from spending most of my time doing things I do not want to do and feeling like my entire life has been wasted.  Tired of having a broken heart full of sadness for not ever achieving any of my high end goals due to an ugly cocktail of laziness, poor decision making, bad timing, lack of ability, and uncooperative health issues.  Perhaps if I had never had dreams, I would not be so lost now.

  

 

Ocean Breathes Salty

He sat down on the bench beneath the coat rack. Various odors drifted around his senses from the jackets lined up above his head. Each jacket’s stench told a different story about its owner. He leaned his elbows onto his knees and dropped his face into his palms. He didn’t want to delve into those stories. Pain felt like it was going to rupture out from the middle of his back, or at least seep out through the hole in his left side. The pain was from pressure. The pressure was from old blood swirling around his insides from a long stretch of internal bleeding while on blood thinners during a disastrous hospital stay. He was dizzy from the pills he had taken. He began to shiver, as he attempted to regain his feet and return to work. He closed his eyes and concentrated on his hands as they struggled to retie the white apron around his waist. He heard a voice from behind him ask if he was okay.

“Well that is that

And this is this

You tell me what you want

I’ll tell you what you get

You get away from me”

Red and green cloud the pool’s alternating surface direction inside the bright white porcelain bowl. He managed a grunt of laughter as he thought to himself about how the colors were so festive. He tried to ignore the burn from the infection. He was unable to button his jeans, because his hands were shaking too much. The bandage wrapped around his abdomen had begun to unstick, so he tried to hold it in place with his elbow. The tiny rubber ball underneath the burgundy stained gauze that was connected to a tube that thrust deep inside of him looked like it was filled with Kool-Aid, but it made him think of knife wounds.

“The ocean breathes salty

Won’t you carry him in

In your head

In your mouth

In your soul

And maybe we’ll get lucky

And we’ll both grow old

Well I don’t know

I don’t know

I hope so”

Wrapping his arms tightly around each other, he allowed his head to fall against the stair behind it. His momentum shifted his weight across the steps into the wall. He couldn’t make the ataxia of his torso stop no matter how hard he tried to squeeze himself still. His teeth rattled despite his efforts to clamp down his jaw and arrest control of his muscles from the disease that had already eaten away his soul. He could’ve called out for help, but all he could think about was his impending death. It was past 3 am anyway. He didn’t want to wake anyone. He pondered the notion of his death and what it meant to him. Nothing came to mind, other than a sense of relief and the emptiness that he had always envisioned. He had learned less than two months prior that bleeding to death internally would be a good way to go. It was so relaxing to be slowly drained of life; to delve peacefully into a deep sleep and then never wake up. He did wake up though, and instead found himself sweating, shivering, nauseous and forced into a fallen position on a staircase due to crippling pain.

“Well that is that

And this is this

You told me what you saw

And I’ll tell you what you missed

When the ocean met the sky

You missed when time in life

Shook hands and said goodbye

When the Earth folded in on itself

And said ‘Good luck

I hope heaven and hell

Are really there

I wouldn’t hold my breath’

You wasted life

Why wouldn’t you waste death?”

He stared out toward the horizon. The low autumn afternoon sun still burned bright, if not hot. He considered how the tiny bumps for hills covered with tall trees to the west are blocking his view of the ocean from this vantage point. He had actually never seen the beach along this stretch. He had been to this little town hundreds of times, but never ventured anywhere beyond its two very modest golf courses, which lie just inland. He held his shirt up, as his friend worked diligently to reapply his stained bandage to his side and back. A layer of sweat from the activity and humid heavy coastal air made the bandage a liability. The third member of their group, who joined a few holes prior, asked if he could play through. They nodded and laughed at the circumstance. His pain and mourning have been tempered with determination and a realization at how much he wanted to keep fighting.

“The ocean breathes salty

Won’t you carry him in

In your head

In your mouth

In your soul

And the more we move ahead

The more we’re stuck in rewind

Well I don’t mind

I don’t mind

How could I mind?”

lyrics & title taken from Isaac Brock./Modest Mouse