Finding Shards of Hope

Amongst strangers and balloons

Last weekend I went back to my alma mater for Alumni Weekend. I had been back to campus a few times over the years, mostly to volunteer at a networking event that the Career Services office put on, never for a purely social event. I wasn't sure what to expect. The event fell at the end of a week that felt a year long (yes, the election, but also a couple other personal and professional things lining up in a way that made Wednesday feel like surely it had to be Friday). I questioned whether attending was the right choice.

Turned out it was exactly what I needed. Here's why:

Strangers. I didn't know anyone there, except my spouse who came with me. I didn't make plans to meet up with anyone, didn't randomly run into anyone I knew. But we did meet people and then just kept running into them over the course of the two days. We sat at some empty seats at a table with Bob from California at the welcome dinner and had a fascinating conversation. The next evening we saw him at the post-basketball game festivities at a local brewery and pulled up a chair at his table once again.

After dinner Friday, we attended a wine tasting led by a professor I took a summer Physics class with after my junior year. We met his wife and lots of other people. Two of those people were the couple that ended up having a tailgate spot next to ours the next day. Their daughter is a member of the dance team and they had invited other dance team parents to join them. We were also invited to pull up a chair and chatted with the group about the experience their daughters were having in college, other places they had applied, how they were processing the results of the election. Later as the dance team took the floor (at the 8-minute TV timeout in the second quarter, just as the text one of the dancers sent her mom had predicted), we were excited to cheer them on, feeling like we knew them at least a little bit.

Balloons. At the beginning of the basketball game, cheerleaders and event staff moved throughout the stadium handing out long, thin, white balloons. The ones that people make balloon animals out of, that also, it turns out, make the basketball arena look really festive and celebratory when everyone holds them at one end and waves them in the air. Because of their bendable balloon-animal-making nature, they can also very easily be tied together. A group of kids in the corner of the stadium figured this out and began connecting their balloons, seeing how long they could make the chain. Then the student section noticed and started connecting their balloons. Adults started passing more balloons to the kids, who ran around collecting them, as an unspoken goal arose—build a chain that extends all the way around the arena. While they didn't quite make it before the final buzzer rang, they came awfully close, extending the chain around easily three-quarters of the space.

Division and sadness and anger feel palpable right now. There are predictions and speculations about the future everywhere. It's hard to sit still in the present and acknowledge that as much as we try to corral the future and make sense of the past, we truly cannot. It's uncertain. Unsteady.

And yet . . .

For a few hours this weekend there were strangers who welcomed me to their table, and invited me to pull up a chair in their circle. Who shared their stories earnestly and listened to mine intently. There was a small group of kids who brought together an entire basketball arena to work on a collective project through their sheer excitement and enthusiasm for something as totally random as tying balloons together.

And yes, I'm very aware that these aren't big state-of-the-world altering actions. They are merely small acts of connection and fun and kindness. But I'll take glittering little shards of hope where I can find them.

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This Week Last Year

This was a fun one about motivational quotes that sometimes aren't quite so motivational. (I have another office move coming up in December. I wonder what reflection that might spark.)

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Squirrel of the Week

Is a flamingo! I went to a fun yard flamingo decorating party last week and another guest was handing these tiny little birds out.

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How are you, really? Any spots of joy (shards of hope) showing up for you? Are you finding ways to step away from all the speculation and take care of yourself in the present moment?