My good friend, Molly, never fails to send me wondrous things via email. Sometimes it is a photo of her hennaed hand, sometimes it’s a poem she wrote, sometimes it’s an image of the woods she is walking through, and many times it is an educational idea, activity, or concept. Today, it was a link to Kids for Peace: Uplifting our World Through Love and Action. As I scrolled through the website, something struck my eye: The Someday Soon Jar activity. As soon as I saw it, I knew what I was going to blog about.
Yesterday, I was complaining to Molly that I had writer’s block. I didn’t know what to write about – too many ideas were swirling in my head, and none seemed inspirational. I’ve been pulled down by torrential rain and a flood of increasingly bad news. I haven’t had nightmares in a very long time, but last night I had a terribly helpless one that recurred all night long! I was walking on my school’s campus. It was winter and snow was piled high. I was looking at the mounds and mounds of snow. I realized that the mounds were actually cars covered with snow and a thick layer of ice. On one car the ice was beginning to melt and slip from the back window. When I looked through the back window, I saw a child’s face submerged in icy water. I screamed, but there was no sound. I took a shovel and started hacking through the ice and snow, but I could not get to the little boy. Then I realized there was a whole line of cars with people trapped in them submerged in icy water covered in mounds of snow: a female college student, a family with young children, a young man with a beard – all looking at me with frozen screams. I run from one to the next, helpless. There was no one else around to help me. It was too late. That’s when I wake up. My heart is racing. I calm down and tell myself that it’s just a dream. I go back to sleep and dream the same exact dream again. This happens three more times until it is morning, and I’m too exhausted to go back to sleep.
I get out of bed. Make a cup of tea. Check my email. And there it is: the email from Molly waiting for me like a gift – The Someday Soon Jar. It’s exactly what I need right now – HOPE in bright glowing rainbow colors. Hope that the ones I love will stay healthy and strong. Hope that America will be a place of inclusion and peace. Hope that I can make a difference with my words, images, and stories. Hope that we are not all frozen in anger, fear, and anxiety. Just plain, old-fashion, childlike hope.
The idea behind the Someday Soon Jar is that children write out all things that they wish or hope to do someday soon. It could be taking a trip, visiting friends and family, collecting rocks or sea shells. It could be baking a treat, eating ice cream, watching the sunset. It could be playing a game or laying in the shade of a beautiful oak tree, reading a good book. I love this idea of happy anticipation. I definitely need more happy anticipation in my life right now, so I created my own Someday Soon Jar and will start to write my ideas down. Of course, my jar is an empty tissue box instead of a beautiful glass jar, but I don’t think that matters. What matters is hope and the joy of happy expectation.
Someday Soon
Someday Soon
I will sit at my window
Looking out into the pouring rain,
Fat drops against the panes,
Thunder grumbling, a crack of lightening,
Then sheets drenching the trees –
Green-leafed umbrellas,
Shelters for the squirrels
And a pair of soft gray doves.
A cup of steaming tea, a good book
I am warm and dry.
Someday Soon
We will take a long drive
Out into the country
Out into the mountains
Rising to meet us,
Green and welcoming.
My husband riding shotgun,
Telling wild stories,
Laughing as we ride along.
Rows upon rows of hilltops
On the summer horizon.
Someday soon
I will walk along the shore,
Sand beneath my feet,
Salty bubbles between my toes,
The waves casting out shells
And pulling them back in –
A rhythm close to breathing.
Bending down to reach
The slippers, scallops, and clams,
Pearl-pink and shiny
In my grateful hands.
Someday soon
I’ll walk back across
The Sant Angelo bridge
Lined with ten graceful angels.
Ornate wrought-iron lamps
Curve brightly at dusk.
Lovers linger, peering down
Into the murky waters of the Tiber.
Walking between the angels
Into the park strewn with twinkling lights,
Music plays, and I begin to dance.
Word Dancer: Literature, the Arts, & Education 
JOJO!!! Oh my gosh. This is beautiful and powerful. Your dream hauntingly so. I cannot read it again, but perhaps you can find solace by telling yourself some of the beauty is you CAN save those people, and you do it all the time. Your presence to friends, colleagues, students (new and old) free them from their awful spaces. So if you dream it again … remind yourself of the incredible worth in your heart and mind. Embrace them with that. Fan it into flames, and let the heat it bears free them!
And THANK YOU!!! for this lovely post, for your friendship, affirmations, and your hope and encouragement that someday soon we will be able to do all those things. I appreciate it ALL!!! And ROME! oh my gosh. 🙂
OH, and I love the composition of the photo.
Keep being you, my friend!
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lol … perhaps I should read before posting … or perhaps I should accept it as a message to you.
I meant to say warmth in your heart. I love that it says worth. Please read it with worth and warmth!!! lol
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So if you dream it again … remind yourself of the incredible worth/warmth in your heart and mind. Embrace them with that. Fan it into flames, and let the heat it bears free them! –
I love that you wrote this to me. It makes me see the dream in such a more empowering way. Instead of being defeated, I can change the scenario. As always – good advice.
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“Happy expectation.” The word expectation, for me, has a somewhat negative connotation as it means something I need to live up to. But a happy expectation turns that into something positive! This could be a powerful activity for when we return to school, as we know it won’t be normal!
The way you turned your happy expectations into a poem is lovely – it brings such hope for a time when we can all dance!
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Thank you, Leigh Anne! Yes, I try to remind myself to leave a little room for dancing.
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Wow – you have so much packed into your writing today! You had me at the Kids for Peace website and The Someday Soon Jar. Reminds me of the picture book by Eileen Spinelli: Someday. Then your dream. You had me hanging on, gasping with trepidation! I’m so sorry for those repeated nightmares! And then your beautiful poems of someday … just delightful! You went full circle here with ups and downs! Keep filling up your someday soon box with happy expectations!
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Thank you Michelle. I usually try to plan my writing. This just came out as I felt it!
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Starting with a writer’s block and then writing this – fantastic. I sincerely hope that your someday soon is just around the corner. “A cup of steaming tea, a good book” is probably almost here already.
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Hope is something we all need so much lately. This is such a fun idea to hold on to that happy anticipation. We all need friends like Molly, to send us hope at just the right time after such an awful night! I love the last line of your poem.
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Thank you and yes Molly is a blessing! Every day she shows me what hope and courage look like.
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This! My latest post is about Active Hope, and I find myself searching for moments in this world where I can see or feel hope. Your nightmare is real – as I read your words this morning, you clenched my heart. My heart raced even though I just awoke from a restful night’s sleep.
The Someday Soon Jar is an excellent idea; it provides children with an opportunity to realize a new normal will emerge. I would encourage us to consider an additional jar… Do Today… 🙂 I often read Someday is Not a Day of the Week, a children’s book with an adult message:
Thank you for the gift of your words. They are important.
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Thank you! I bought the book right away! I hadn’t heard of it, but definitely will read it and read it aloud to my classes. I agree a Do Today Jar is also much needed!
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I like when you write prose and poetry in the same post. I’m sorry for your nightmares and hope you have had some restful nights since writing this. Your poem is important and I think I’m going to use it as inspiration for one of my own.
Ruth
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Thank you, Ruth! That means a lot to me! I also love reading memoirs and am putting your suggestions on my ever growing reading list.
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Your poem is filled with images of the past but hope for the future. I hope every someday soon comes true for you.
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Thank you, Elsie. America needs hope right now!
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What terrors in your dream, what hope in your poem… these are days of both. Thank you for sharing this in your writing.
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