Ruth Maclennan

Надiя

Надежда, Надзея, Naděžda, Nada, Nadja…

Hope is a woman’s name. It is a common name shared between Slavic cultures. It is a translation of the Greek name Eλπίς (Elpis) a minor Goddess. Elpis, Hope, was the last thing remaining in Pandora’s box, after she had opened it and released so many ills.  

Only Hope was left within her unbreakable house,
she remained under the lip of the jar and did not
fly away. Before [she could], Pandora replaced the
lid of the jar. [translation of Hesiod, Wikipedia entry on Elpis accessed 6^th January, 2024]

So Pandora’s curiosity was accursed, and we are lucky enough that hope didn’t escape and remains to comfort people, or was it the opposite and (idle, false) hope was another curse that Pandora’s box kept in check, locked away, hidden.  

Are women supposed to carry the weight of hope? Or represent or perform or hold onto, hope? Hope is weightless, unrealistic, unbelievable sometimes.  Hopes float and carry you away on a bubble or they are dashed and bring you down to earth. Hopes are heavenly, while troubles are earthly, weighing you down. But hope carries you into the future, buoys you up, moves you on, takes you forward, or at least keeps you afloat. Every child represents hope to her parents, and to others too.     

dum spiro spero – while I breathe, I hope. I first saw this motto on a postcard, beneath a gloomy tartan-draped figure representing the clan MacLennan. It conjured a bleak, worthy trudge through life.

Hope is a theological virtue in Christianity along with faith and love, and the cardinal virtues of temperance, justice, prudence, and fortitude.  

Hope can feel good. It is life itself, like breathing – a sign of being alive. Breathing and hoping. Suck the air in, feel your rib cage expand and slowly release. Counting breaths to slow down your breathing prises open a sliver of time and space for a bubble of hope, interrupts the racing thoughts and fears. Listen to the air travel through your body, on to somewhere, someone, else. But only if there is air and space to breathe. Rami Abou Jamous claps with his two-year old son when he hears explosions in Gaza, to help him believe they are fireworks. [Read Anne Brunswic’s post, republishing Rami Abou Jamous, ‘J’ai fais mon sourire de clown et ça a marché’, December 10, Crown Letter Week 203]

Hope against fear. Hope against death.  Hope is a holding place, held onto with and for love, when you can’t afford rage.

The sculpture, ‘Wings’, commemorates those who died in the anti-Communist resistance in Romania and Bessarabia between 1945 and 1989. It replaces a statue of Lenin. The ‘House of the Free Press’ was the former headquarters of ‘The Spark’ newspaper. This ideological soup of rehashed symbols and random vehicles, cosmic idols and exhaust fumes clogs the senses.

I lay down on the grass to look upwards and caught sight of swallows darting about high up above. They reminded me of all the other swallows I have watched – north, south, east and west. They fly everywhere. I love them.