Imbolc once again

 Or Candlemas, or St. Brigid's Day, or Groundhog Day

Once again I remember the old, old blog-tradition - which I love, and miss, just as I miss the common "general interest" blogs. Oh, there are still a few, but fewer than there were in the early 00s.

Someone back then started a tradition of sharing a poem on this day. And it seems like a good tradition. And no matter what's happening in the world we need beauty, and we need good words, and if you're like me, you need poetry. 

Anyway, I may come up with a more widely-published one a bit lager, I have to pull one of my poetry books off the shelf and look at it. But I thought of this one, which I shared in October a couple years ago; it's from someone on Tumblr who calls themselves Mumblesplash:

"Hope is a weapon

Hope is a skill

Hope is a plant you can care for or kill 

Hope is a discipline 

Something you choose 

Hard to stop looking for 

Easy to lose

Hope isn’t something to have or to take 

If you can’t find it, it’s something you make 

Make it from willpower 

Make it from spite 

Learn how to weaponize love in a fight 

 Hope is a shield, and a thing to defend 

End in itself, and a means to an end." 

Because yeah; hope is really something I struggle with right now because (gestures at world). It's very easy for me now, especially given 2020's pandemic, to feel like when times are bad, they will ALWAYS be bad, and that's not good for my motivation to do anything - to plan research, to even read up on stuff for research, to knit, to work on the Moominhouse, to play piano, anything, because it feels like "if you could be wiped off the earth tomorrow, what will any of it matter? what will anything matter?" and that's hard. I hope the chaos slows soon, or there's more concentrated resistance, or something.But right now, I may HAVE to keep running on spite or willpower for the time being.