A Microdose of Hope

It seems that we are living in an era of extraordinary anxiety and fear. After Covid-19, the ever-expanding season and severity of wildfires, and the 2024 election, what remains among the things we have long called normal? We thought our nation’s constitution was set in stone — or at least on parchment safely under glass. In the Greater Yellowstone region, we have assumed that national parks and forests and other public land would always be there for the people and the wild ecosystem that depends on untrammeled land. Now I’m not so sure.

I’ve noticed an uptick in the popularity of books and movies having to do with World War II. Perhaps we need that reminder. Do we still tell ourselves, “Never again,” as we have for most of a century? We Americans have been certain that the horrors of Nazi Germany could never happen here. Again, I’m not so sure.

During a time of fear it’s tempting for the privileged among us — those who are housed and fed — to retreat into our small, familiar bubbles. We do our breathing exercises, say some prayers, share a joke with the lady at the post office … whatever might give comfort or reassurance. After all, there is nothing we can do about the crises around the globe.

On days when I feel like there’s nothing I can do, I recall a frigid November morning when a shiny object in the window caught my eye.

It turned out to be a messenger from the summer past: a living butterfly. White with pale yellow and a few dark dots, it was the kind I try to keep away from garden kale with netting, row cover and whatever else I can find. Once I understood what I was looking at, I also understood that this little life was doomed.

It must have come in as a chrysalis on one of the potted geraniums that I overwinter indoors. At the cusp of winter, it was an adult with two tasks remaining in its short life: pollinate and reproduce. Nothing was in bloom and the butterfly had no partner. It couldn’t do its job.

I imagined it yearning for the sky it could detect through sunlit glass, where the temperature stood at zero. I set a shallow dish of sugar water on the windowsill, which the butterfly ignored. Would it have had time to hatch and fly if I hadn’t brought the geraniums indoors in anticipation of an October frost? I realized I had saved my domesticated hybrid annuals at the expense of a wild insect. 

It’s typical for do-gooders like me to jump in to help without all the facts. Had I seen the chrysalis, which look exactly like small leaves, I would have left the plant outside until the pupa hatched. But we rarely have the whole picture when we take action, so we do what we can with the information at hand. I must remember to take a breath and think before jumping in to help. I must ask if I can help at all.

While I try to do “right,” I also have to ask myself what that word means at a time when we no longer seem to agree on much of anything in this country. What is truth when our information comes from competing sources that convey different “facts?” Our once-shared values feel less shared than ever.

I’ve lived most of my life in my own sort of chrysalis, during decades of relative prosperity and generosity. My parents owned their home thanks to the GI Bill. The generation before them kept their homes thanks to the New Deal. Government saw what the people needed and took thoughtful, generous action.

When we became aware of the damage being done by pollution and destruction of natural habitats, we acted. Our government, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, gave us more environmental laws than fit into this short essay. (See an alphabetical list of them below.) Unfortunately, for the last several decades we’ve witnessed attacks on regulations associated with those laws, while an increasing human population continues to demand more of earth’s resources.

It’s not sustainable. Denying that climate change exists and pretending that the wildlife we displace with our human footprint can just go somewhere else will not change reality. Above, I said that we act without the facts at times, but I could not imagine that the more facts we gather, the less we are willing to accept them. But here we are.

I’m told I have to hang onto hope, that despair does not help. Professor and author Brené Brown suggests we give ourselves microdoses of hope in times like these, when capital-letter Hope is hard to come by. So I’m trying.

Dictators may destroy, but the people rebuild, and for that we need community — beyond family and close friends. I fear we are losing a sense of community as local news outlets disappear and people look at their phones instead of saying hello while passing on the sidewalk. Neighbors come and go so frequently these days, I know hardly anyone on my block.

When it comes to what I can do in my small corner of the world, I think of what others have done for me. Last fall, a friend whose garden is more prolific than my shady one offered some of his abundant harvest. Another friend brought me a homemade wreath that still looks as fresh as it did the day I hung it. Recently, I was invited to see the Bob Dylan film A Complete Unknown with some ladies I know from choir and we laughed and sang along for two and half hours.

While not making a noticeable difference in the realm of geopolitics, such acts foster a sense of community, the necessary basis for a functioning society.

I try to engage in my community, speaking up for our precious environment, singing in a choir, standing on nonprofit boards, and so on. It will never feel like enough, and often my efforts seem to fail. But I can’t stop trying.

Each day I seek my microdose of hope, and when I do so I feel gratitude. I am still alive, I am housed and fed. And when failure and despond could easily make me feel helpless, one truth I know is this: the dead butterfly has lent its nutrients to the potted geranium soil, and bright scarlet flowers are blooming in front of January’s frosted windows. For this moment, that is enough.