What I Learned About Hope from a Trip to the Park
Sometimes, a small, unplanned moment in our day can teach us the biggest lesson.
If we don’t have hope, what do we have?
Traveling used to be my life. For the past 3+ years, I’ve been a digital nomad: I lived out of a suitcase and country-hopped around Europe every 1–3 months. I’d walk up ancient stone steps of castles in Sintra, Portugal one moment and swim in Dubrovnik, Croatia’s perfect-blue Adriatic Sea the next. Of course, not anymore.
With traveling at a standstill due to the pandemic, we need to take what we can get — safely, of course. These days, “traveling” could mean a “trip” to the grocery store or a jog in the park — it’s all about perspective.
Back in March, when more and more flights started to get cancelled — both within Europe and beyond — I was in Prague. What was supposed to be a few weeks quickly turned into a few months. How could one animal in China cause so much havoc across the world, I wondered.
And yet I feel everyone’s handling the pandemic differently: While some people leave their homes daily to go for a bike ride or a socially distanced walk with a friend — or even out to eat (gasp!) — others, like me, rarely, rarely leave. To me, “rarely” was twice a month, when I’d be so low…
