{"id":1187,"date":"2016-04-18T07:21:16","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T11:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/?p=1187"},"modified":"2016-04-18T09:43:31","modified_gmt":"2016-04-18T13:43:31","slug":"hope-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/hope-means\/","title":{"rendered":"What Hope Means"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-1188 size-large\" title=\"What Hope Means\" src=\"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/HOPEpost-410x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops hills and valleys of central new york to depict hope\" width=\"410\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/HOPEpost-410x1024.jpg 410w, https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/HOPEpost-120x300.jpg 120w, https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/HOPEpost-768x1920.jpg 768w, https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/HOPEpost-624x1560.jpg 624w, https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/HOPEpost.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 410px) 100vw, 410px\" \/>\u201cPerhaps expanding on what hope means to you,\u201d a friend wrote in the feedback she gave for my new photo essay book, to be published in May. In the book, <em>Nevergone: Reframing the Death and Grieving of the One You Love<\/em>, through intricate Photo-shopped pictures and short essays, I explore different ways one grieves and may view death. At the beginning and end of the book I wish for hope for my readers. But I had not expanded on the meaning of hope, even though it is the backbone of the book, and a vital resource for surviving tough times.<\/p>\n<p>When immobilized by a problem, like writing about hope or <a href=\"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/mother-swallowed-daughter\/\" target=\"_blank\">being grateful<\/a>, I make lists. It\u2019s a way to stop procrastinating and begin to wade into the challenge painlessly. So my problem of hope became a list.<\/p>\n<p>What hope means. To me:<\/p>\n<p>Believing in new possibilities, believing there is more.<br \/>\nLight in the darkness.<br \/>\nEmily Dickinson\u2019s \u201cthing with feathers that perches in the soul.\u201d<br \/>\nPositive thinking, Wishing.<br \/>\nSomething that makes us stronger and braver than we ever believed we could be.<br \/>\nDaring to imagine that everything will work out okay.<br \/>\nThe thing that encourages me to keep living, loving, searching, &#8230;singing to the moon, despite what life has thrown at me.<br \/>\nThe voice in my head that whispers \u201cmaybe\u201d when all else is screaming \u201cno way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At nighttime I took the problem to bed, and when morning came, I took it with me on a hike in the deep dark woods. There, on steep slopes covered with decayed leaves and the debris of winter thawing, growing wedged between rocks and fallen branches, I found tiny wildflowers called snowdrops blooming brightly in sparse patches of light.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>What does hope mean to you? <\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&ldquo;Perhaps expanding on what hope means to you,&rdquo; a friend wrote in the feedback she gave for my new photo essay book, to be published in May. In the book, Nevergone: Reframing the Death and Grieving of the One You Love, through intricate Photo-shopped pictures and short essays, I explore different ways one grieves and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[702],"tags":[806,803,808,810,807,805,804,809,811,802],"class_list":["post-1187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-702","tag-believing","tag-daring-to-imagine","tag-emily-dickinson","tag-hoping-for-hope","tag-light-in-the-dark","tag-making-lists","tag-meaning-of-hope","tag-positive-thinking","tag-what-hope-means","tag-what-is-hope"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}