You continue to think about hope, and how to incorporate it into your belief system. You have concluded that in order to either embrace or reject the concept of hope, that you have to have a belief system.

You are sadly lacking in this respect. You have never been able to adhere to any particular religious doctrine. Catholicism is far too patriarchal, Buddhism is too difficult to understand, and Islam has violent overtones. Or so you think.

Sunset over upper garden

You consider your inability to embrace any faith based entity as like having walked into a thrift store and discovering that nothing fit.

Hope or not to hope, this is the question. Lately, you’ve been catching yourself hoping for certain things, then realizing that hope, which lends itself to passivity, isn’t going to get you what you want.

This is what you thought about, as later this afternoon you and Pete went for your annual Thanksgiving Day horseback ride.

Yesterday and today, you continued to promote the book project, by giving away books. Yesterday afternoon, you went to Anchorage, specifically to the Performing Arts Center, and passed out books prior to and after the performance of the Nutcracker Suite.

It was, as you sorted books prior to the performance, calm before the storm, that you happily categorized books and placed them in three-sided wooden containers that you had purchased at Target a few hours before. This was at one end of a long line of tables. Milena, who still has books left from her Book Waves project, put her books out at the other end of the table.

The ushers, dressed in black and white, were the first to take note of the books on hand. The performance goers then followed them into the lobby area.

There were so many people – a steady stream for a few hours – the best you could do was first mention that the books were free, then draw them in by pointing to the kids’ books. The majority of parents and kids seemed delighted by the finds, some less so. In all instances, you reminded yourself that book ownership is literacy related. Most, you thought, have time to read, and read to their children, and you further speculated that education and the jobs that provided them with leisure time allowed for this.

At the conclusion of the evening, you had two boxes of books left, and Milena had none. This morning you passed three-quarters of a box of books out at a faith based community turkey dinner.

It was more difficult getting takers at the Menard Center Thanksgiving Day dinner. Might it be that these older, and less highly educated individuals weren’t readers? Perhaps they didn’t have good educations to start with? Or perhaps their jobs were physically taxing, making it difficult to find the time to read.

You well know that here you are generalizing. However, there was a clearly defined difference in attitude amongst the two groups.

I finished our ride thinking that it’s far easier to live for the moment if the moment is a good one. And reading is central to this.

Next: 324. 11/25/22: Still More about the Same