I’m teaching Greek myths and the kids are reading and watching all sorts of different stories. One is the story of Pandora, and I keep thinking about how hope is the only thing left in the box after all the terrible things were let out into the world. It has a double meaning, it seems: we have hope, but maybe hope was in the box in the first place because it is terrible.

Today I had a hopeful day, at least for a while. I was finally hopeful about the future for a little bit today, just briefly, while I was hanging out with my classes and thinking about how things right then were good. I’ve been worried about things, since I’m in a new school and at the bottom of the food chain, so to speak, but today I actually lived in the moment with kids and got into the flow of things. I worked late into the afternoon, getting things ready for tomorrow and getting things graded and up to date. It takes longer to prepare things because the material is new and I want to be extra prepared.

When I left, the sun was still out and it was warm enough to leave my coat open. The air was still crisp with a hint of winter, which feels so good to inhale after a day in the stagnant school air. The car had warmed in the sun and the drive calmed me. When I got home, I was in a good mood. Hopeful.

Then I read the news. I am a news junkie, or I was, or I still am, but I don’t want to be, or something. The hope drained out of me with each new story: McMaster out, Bolton in. A six year old watched her father die from bombing in Austin. No word about why culprit did it. Pennsylvania Republican legislature moves to impeach judges because they didn’t like the ruling. Women accuse Trump of everything. Bots in Russia worse than originally thought. Cambridge Analytica… well, that’s all I need to say about that. Racism. Misogyny. Homophobia. Potential for war. Gun ads. Shooting at school in Maryland seems to be a domestic situation. Russia is poisoning people with nerve agents. Everything sucks. Everything.

Exhausted from that and hopeless once again, we went up to see all the science projects at Annika’s school science fair. She told me all about the questions the judges had asked her at the fair this morning, and how she had answered them. Her project was about fingerprints and how to dust for them. She told me her friend had an inside pocket loop on one of her fingers, just like Annika has on one of her own – it’s a pretty rare fingerprint. The science fair projects are always fun: there’s the slime projects, the volcanos and Diet Coke/Mentos projects, the potato power batteries and the solar-powered car kits. One kid had taken different drinks and boiled them down to get the sugar out of them to show how much sugar was in each drink – the leftovers were in plastic bags stapled to his board. It was gross and amazing.

When we were there, one of the judges happened to be there as well because it was conferences and she was there with her kids. When she saw Annika, she stopped us and said “she did SO well today! I learned so much! Great work!” Annika beamed. Her teachers all said her project was interesting and that she presented it well. That didn’t surprise me – she’s kind of a ham, especially when it comes to teaching people things and answering questions. When we left, I was back to feeling hopeful for the future.

I like to think hope is a good thing, but I can see how it might not be. It hurts when hope is dashed; it almost seems better not to have hope and to accept what comes without expectation. It also makes the emotional rollercoaster that much larger; hope brings you up and then the fall is much further. Still, it felt good for the brief moments in my classes, in the sun, and hanging out this evening.