Song of Hope

The whir of my portable sewing machine transports me back in time to the porch of our lake cottage. For many years I awoke there, dappled with morning sun as it danced through the tulip tree, listening to the hum of mother’s Sew Handy machine singing its steady drone.  I associated this pleasant mechanical voice with mossy, wet lake smells and tender expectations.  Simple wishes decorated my childlike innocence in those days, in the same way delicate white clover blossoms sprinkled our yard, confetti-like.  The machine's song of hope fit right in.

Recently I used that same machine to patch jean shorts belonging to my husband of 45 years.  Despite compromised hearing, I continue to relish its sweet, hopeful murmur all these years later - a sound that draws me inward to consider what is simple and true.  In that interior place I revisit the familiar memory of my porch mornings, except with certain additions: wrinkles, scars, bunions, gray hairs, a measure of knowledge and wisdom, and maturing faith that inspires endurance and the ambition to live fully and well.

This connection is a powerful thing.  Also the realization that hope has been growing yeast-like in hidden, core places all along, and continues to swell and encompass all of me.