I have this terrible feeling, this terribly dangerous fluttering feeling that I believe is called “hope”. The sun isn’t helping. After weeks of rain, of flat white skies and grave afternoons, the weather is finally perfect. Obscenely so. We have a bunch of sweetpeas on our table that smells of golden syrup and the kitchen scene in late morning is so gorgeous I can only look at it out of the corner of my eye. Blackberries creep across the path outside, imploring us to eat them, and when we do they taste precise and correct and barely stain our clothes at all. Things are not all bad right now is what I’m saying; things are almost good.
Like looking at sweetpeas, I read the news with one eye closed. Yes there is horror, gradations of agony and hell. But in among the pain there are moments of magic, like the communities coming out to rebuild mosques, and mobilising to defend their streets from far-right rioters, and like Simone Biles flying, actually flying in feats of artful greatness, and, on the other channel, signs of real change. Could it be, dare we dream, that Kamala Harris might become president of America? A woman who is firm on abortion and reproductive rights over a man who takes credit for overturning Roe v Wade? It makes me feel hopeful, which then makes me feel terrified.
There’s been a 14-point rise in those feeling “upbeat” since the UK’s election took place. Polling found that only 31% of voters were optimistic about the country before the election, with 43% actively pessimistic. After Labour got in, sentiment flipped, with 45% now optimistic about the country. And while this new government is far from perfect, their speed in confirming the NHS workers, teachers and junior doctors’ pay rises feels straightforward, and positive.
At home, too, a slow breeze of optimism has entered my family’s houses: every month that passes since my sister’s stem cell transplant stacks itself silently, bravely, on top of the last, a brittle tower of hope. You know that feeling when a butterfly lands on your wrist, like, you daren’t move, or speak in anything above a whisper? We don’t know quite what to do with ourselves.
It’s much easier, much more comfortable to expect the worst. There is great pleasure in mockery, and huge relief in pessimism. Far better to plan for the worst and then, of course, you win whatever happens, whether the best or the awfully expected. Far better to despair. Sure, you live only half a life, looking backwards, wearing wipe-clean tracksuits in a gamut of blues, better for hiding stains, but – it is simpler that way.
Besides, expressing hope is, unfortunately, embarrassing. Babies are hopeful, not grown adults. Babies look at, for instance, a clean spoon, and their eyes widen, their mouths open, they shiver with glee. A train? Euphoria. Appear suddenly from behind your hand with a smile and some insane rhyming phrase? Do not get me started.
Dogs, too – dogs, if they once, for example, found a piece of fried chicken beneath a bench, then they will drag you to that bench every day for the next eight years, just in case. This is hope, enduring, facile, empty. Grown adults however, we are meant to be wiser, more cynical. Partly because we’ve been burned before. We can all remember the last time we allowed ourselves a morsel of hope, perhaps at work, perhaps from politics, perhaps when attempting to manipulate a loved one, only to find ourselves promptly ejected from that fantasy and dropped down to earth with a painful thump.
So the impulse is, when dabbling once again in hope, to rein it in. The impulse is to take oneself by the shoulders and shake firmly, to look in the mirror and yell, “Stop that now you stupid bitch.”
But! Do you remember when Sarah Palin, campaigning in 2010, asked Barack Obama supporters, “How’s that hopey changey thing working out for ya?” In retrospect I sort of get her appeal – camp, a bit cheeky. Anyway, a few years later Obama responded. “All that hopey changey stuff, as they say? That was real… It’s still there. Even in the midst of this hardship. But – it’s hard.”
I guess it shouldn’t take a president to explain to me that hope isn’t just the simple drag of a dog to a possible treat, but also a kind of work, a kind of struggle. Apathy and despair beget apathy and despair, and sometimes they keep us frozen in the state where only bad things happen. Whereas hope, even just a splash, can lead to us investing more than just dry little dreams of the future we want – it could mean , or engaging in politics, or mobilising our communities, or just acting nicely in pursuit of delight. Yes pessimism feels delicious, but it’s a vice, and should therefore be indulged only in moderation.
You know, I think I’m going to go for it. I’m going to lean into it, towards this awful light, and try to temper the fear with action, however mild, and try to help myself believe that change is possible, and good things are coming. I’m going to look straight at the sweetpeas. What’s the worst that could happen?
Email Eva at e.wiseman@observer.co.uk or follow her on X @EvaWiseman
