Hope as a Metaphor

For several weeks, I've been as wrapped up in my new project as a burrito is wrapped in a tortilla. Energy and creativity wise, it has been almost all-consuming, but I'm still madly in love with tangling words into poems, spinning stories into screenplays. I've been writing articles and content and brainstorming for ideas for my project, which is more than just satisfying; it is fulfilling, knowing that I'm working toward a very workable goal, another great dream that God is already blessing.

But just as SEO began shoving poetry from my mind, and just after I'd decided not to attend a writing conference I'd had on my calendar for months, I got another glimmer of hope that my writing career may move forward when I least expect it.

It came in the form of another rejection, from the H.A. No damning with faint praise, no "we wish you the best in your efforts to place your work elsewhere." Simply: "The sheer volume of excellent poetry we received this fall has been overwhelming and we've had to turn away many wonderful pieces. I highly encourage you to submit your work again for the winter issue." Even though they weren't accepting any of my poems, or promising to take any in the future, that e-mail reached out tantalizingly, like the first autumn breezes that crackle through goldening leaves, promising the beautiful days to come.

And that feeling that tickled up my spine is as much poetry as woven words, in my mind: hope, cornflower skies, moonlit jazz, inspiration, broken shells on the beach, paintbrushes, anticipation, laughter, trees ripe with fruit, perseverance, appreciating and embracing every new day's challenge.

I've begun looking at life as an ongoing poem. Every event becomes a metaphor, a volta, a fluttering synecdoche that reminds me even I am greater than the sum of my achievements would currently suggest. I'm trying to live as I want to write, with a controlled abandon that stretches its arms out toward possibilities that looked too faraway -- until I realized that it takes an outstretched arm to bring the dream within reach.