that old irrepressible-impossible- hope.” And I thought no, this doesn’t feel like hope. But maybe that’s what hope is, no shining thing but a kind of sustenance, plain as bread, the ordinary thing that feeds us. How could we confuse this optimism, when it has nothing to do with expecting things to get better?Hope has to do with continuing, that’s all…I can imagine now, where I couldn’t before, this long erosion of faith, this steady drawing from one’s strength, until what’s left is tenuous, transparent.



