os191228 Year of hope: The bottom of Pandora’s box  

Why hope?

The end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 puts me in the mood to think about the coming year as I paid for my business license with the knowledge that Emeralda Works will continue to be a legal entity, although maybe for the last year of its existence. What signs are there to have hope?

There is Nellie, for one thing, working for a half-time salary, and she can learn about the business license. It’s not morbid to think about it, but I will die someday – it may not be for many years – but eventually it must happen and then the business may close. Or not.

There is hope. I have a brain that’s like Pandora’s Box, which – when opened – all the evils of the world flew out like a flock of crows. But Pandora, in a panic, shut the box in a hurry, and what remained in the box was Hope. I am like Pandora, curious about this box I’m not supposed to open, and I lift the lid a tiny bit and peep inside.

There is Hope.

Emeralda Works is a sentence, a two-word sentence consisting only of a noun and a verb. Emeralda refers to an imaginary land, a region I like to think exists in the Pacific Northwest. It was formed a long time ago by the impact of a great starship, forming a triangular crater which filled with water – the runoff from the snows of three mountains at each apex of the triangles.

Works refers to the fact that imagining such a region as Emeralda (the word itself proved to be a rare one seldom used by anyone else but me) works in the sense that it feeds my hunger for better things, better situations, better encounters and experiences every day.

Then, too, there is the business of living, the short-range daily tasks that need tending to. It’s here where the matters-at-hand come in, things like business licenses, taxes, bookkeeping and legal matters.

That I have at least this business license – paid for by $61 out of our small income – keeps the legal-eagles away from usurping my time and what remains of our resources. It gives me the freedom to think of positive things and think of Hope.

Our daughter Billie Jane reminded us of the movie, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and we watched it. I’d forgotten about it – although I remembered having been assigned reading the James Thurber short story when I was a student.

After watching the movie with Lynda, I realized I am a “Walter Mitty” in the eyes of people like Tom Kughler – subject to flights of the imagination. Thurber’s message must have been a confession of his, as a creative writer must allow imaginary things in order to be human and follow through on vision and curiosity.

He’s not unique. There is a need for imaginary travels if we are to survive. There is a need to entertain if we are to live.