I’ve been listening to this song Last Hope by Paramore every so often when I’m stirring grits or baking off biscuits in the morning. It kind of fills me up with something that feels a lot like pop rocks hitting your tongue or fizzy soda.
It’s to no one’s surprise that I get inspired by seeing other people talk about what sparks them. I am unsure if a cook like me can be considered creative, artistic or just mildly lost in the sauce, but I can assure you that a spark can be enough.
That’s kind of what the song talks about. I have always been drawn to the metaphor of light in dark, or a Great Hope that pushes into the darkness when all hope is lost. It’s that deep knot in my gut when a story feels so incredibly bleak that the smallest bit of hope keeps it all moving forward.
I’ll admit that times have felt dark. I cannot separate myself from the pain the people I love feel — their fears and anxieties become mine more often than not. It’s also not something I try to run away from. If anything I hope to have the space to be open for you and to help carry it when I can.
I know a lot of you are carrying deep pains — deep fears — anxieties of all sorts due to *gestures broadly at everything*. I know I can’t feel what you feel, but I know that hope also lives in the cracks and broken things. Hope is always the last thing that goes, and that rarely is it ever the end.

I’m sorry there aren’t many answers to your questions. I know there are answers I’ve gotten years away from when they were questions — the answer changes, sometimes. You change. The world inevitably changes as it spins and that every damn day is a new challenge. I mean shit! I sprained my neck for two weeks because I slept on the bad side of a pillow.
The world we know is full of all the things. There are plenty of fine lines of beauty and pain, danger and safety. They are millimeters thin and they constantly ebb and flow.
Hold fast to the people that keep you in their hearts. They really aren’t that far away. More people are rooting for you than you think — even when you do feel alone.
Let it happen. Let it all move in you and outside of you — effervescent — sparkly — endlessly. Energy never stops, it just keeps moving, kind of like you, in and out of the light and dark — like a spark, moving towards another new horizon.