Hawthorn Hill Journal by Richard deRosa

On Hope and the ‘Perennial Mind’

I cannot be sure of how others find reason for hope these days. I am on the lookout each and every day. Emily Dickinson wrote, “Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul/ And sings the tune without words,/And never stops at all.” I have been trying much more of late to listen to my soul and, while it is not in my nature to despair, listening to my soul’s songs of hope has been tough. I need to believe that the often faint tunes I hear send this message: Hold on old boy, things will get better. I look for omens everywhere, within and without.

Several mornings ago, while on my morning perusal about the place, I chanced on seeing a tree swallow slip out of the nest box on the far side of the upper hill. Talk about being excited! I hurried back to the house to share the news with Sandy. Why such ado about a tree swallow? Well, it has been several years since any tree swallows have summered with us. That had not been the case for most of our previous summers up here on the hill. We could always count on at least one pair returning and usually there were two or three. When we spotted the first pair our first summer here, we named them Don and Dora. Every succeeding spring when the first pair arrived we would celebrate Don and Dora’s return. It really did not matter if they were not the original pair. We were just so happy to have them back.