Where Hope Resides

It’s hard to believe it’s the start of August and that Greg went back to school yesterday. I’m always reminded, as we head toward fall, that September is the month we put extra effort into suicide prevention with National Suicide Prevention Month and World Suicide Prevention Day.

But there have also been some deaths lately, a death here in New Mexico that no one is saying is a suicide unless one reads between the lines and the death of Sinead O’Connor who couldn’t seem to find peace in herself and then the suicide of her son that made it even more challenging.

All this together started me thinking on what my message September is this year and I realized it’s going to be much different than usual although not a new message for me.

It’s about where we find hope.

I don’t know why, but so often my head the phrase, “where hope resides” travels through and it did last week as I contemplated these deaths and the emotional pain that these people- and so many others– feel.

Life feels so much more challenging these days than ever before- we remain divided and angry. There has been change that makes sense to some and not to others. Even going to a restaurant has come to feel like a chore when you don’t know if they have enough staff to feed you (another topic for another day). Sometimes finding joy feels sucked away with the vacuum cleaner in this change.

When I find myself getting down, the question comes floating through– where does hope reside? In some way, it does in this photo of sunrise in the rice fields in Ubud, Bali. A new day always means a new start. And no matter how difficult the day before was! There is something about darkness giving way to light. After all, it can’t stay dark forever, the sun has to come back.

Perhaps instead of a message this year, a statement of inspiration, I’m issuing my own challenge to everyone (a good challenge, I’d like to think!): where does your hope reside?

Why I Travel

My maternal grandparents lived near O’Hare airport and to get to their house, we had to drive by O’Hare. That meant we were inundated with billboards for all sorts of new destinations, or places to get away to when the cold and dark of winter had descended on us.

But my grandparents also traveled. While I don’t recall all their trips, I know they went to Europe, to Poland, and Egypt, too. My mom worked for an airline and my dad had lots of photos of him at various foreign places while he was in the Navy.

While it was never explicitly said, travel was about exploring the world, branching out beyond your own border (or bubble, as we might say today).

I have been lucky that life has taken me to so many places, places I wanted to go to (Australia) and those unexpected (Hong Kong, Morocco). And now, Bali.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be chronicling aspects of our trip and what the trip meant to me and what I learned from it. We sort of picked Bali out of the hat, not a place either one of us had thought to go to, but we wanted a place neither of us had gone to before and was different enough that we would be somewhat uncomfortable.

Like Morocco, it wasn’t easy at times for a variety of reasons, but being uncomfortable, being outside one’s own box, is how we grow. I could already sense on the trip my growth and I’m looking forward to sharing more in the weeks to come.