WMWW: Hope

Last week, assuming you were hanging on my every word last week - a big assumption, I know - you learned that yes, I am afraid of my gas range. Not terrified in a I'll-never-cook-on-that-thing-ever way, but scared in a low-level OCD kinda way: is the gas off? Did the burner light? What is that hissing sound? Why, dear Lord, WHY are my children so attracted to open flames?

I feel the need to balance my household phobias with a more cheerful post so this week's WMWW topic is ....

HOPE.

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One of the best last lines in any story I've ever read is this one:

"I hope."

I'd make you guess which story, but if you're a busy mommyblogger like myself (and yes, I use that particular label with PRIDE) you're functioning on a little sleep, a lotta caffeine, and quick bursts of manic blogging energy. I'm writing for fun, not for the SATS or ACT.

Of course, if you do know it, take a minute to glow as you pat yourself on the back.

That line ends Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, one of my hands down favorite movies and favorite stories by Stephen King.

So many stories finish with too-tidy endings, the author compelled to tie off every last plot string in a satsifying manner. I don't yearn for happily-ever-after in every story I read; truly, I can't say that I even read much fiction that fits that type of mold. Thought-provoking writing often ends horribly-ever-after, or at least dignifies the story just told by leaving the ending open to possibility.

The ending of Shawshank is wide-blue-skies open. To end with those words tips us all over the edge of those horizons in our own life that seem to be boundaries, walls. Hope crosses borders and walks through walls - as long as we embrace it.

I hope for all the usual things: health and happiness for my children. A long life filled with chances to do good and help others. A long life for my dear Knute so that we can build a legacy for our family.

I've always held hopes for myself as a writer, namely, getting a novel published. And having said novel well-received. And earning mucho dollars from said novel. Don't all of us wannabe writers tend the same patch of dreamy word garden?

But blogging has worked change on me; I see writing and how great writing is received and read by the masses undergoing a revolution via blogging. It is exciting and terrifying and ultimately, hopeful.

My hope as a writer - for this time in my life, while I'm late for school pickups and picking up the endlessly spewed Legos and MegaBloks - is to keep blogging, to keep my toes in this stream of insta-consciousness and insta-community.

It's a good place to be, and that's good enough for me.

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Wanna play along? Post up your ideas on HOPE, then drop your permalink below.

And thanks for reading - it means a lot to me.

WM