Hi friends. Today's episode is hosted by the poet and writer Victoria Chang.

Don't worry, I'll be back on April 8th. I'm Victoria Chang and this is the slowdown.

I'm Victoria Chang and this is the slowdown. down.

I have a funny relationship with hope.

I have a funny relationship with hope.

When I was young, I have a funny relationship with hope.

When I was young, I think I confused hope with leaving. Because my parents were a little more authoritarian than I would have liked.

I was always itching to leave because Michigan was so down to the

bones cold I couldn't wait to get out. I was always thinking that my life would begin

when I could leave.

When I was working in jobs that weren't always a good fit for my interests and personality,

I thought that things would be better once I left. Once I had children, I thought life would be

easier when they could talk, when they could walk,

when they could go to school.

But none of those feelings were hope.

They were just wishing for something different.

Now, I have begun to think that hope is a presentness,

that perhaps hope is within the present, not the future, not in the subjunctive the what if,

for there's beauty all around us all the time.

To have hope is to wake up and perceive in the now, instead of spending the little

mind space we have caught up in the future and possibility.

I just wrote something in a prose manuscript I'm working on.

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