Ciao Readers!

Boy, it’s feast or famine with me and blogging….

For those of you who don’t know me personally, I recently became a federal court of appeals mediator – so it’s basically my job to try and help folks who have been disagreeing, usually for several years or more, to reach a place of agreement (or at least of compromise). On a soon-to-be-related note, I only half-jokingly say that the best thing my mom ever did was give me my name.

I can’t tell you how many puns have been made about my name throughout my life – and I love it – I like to say it’s hard to be pessimistic with my name. In my new role, people often tell me that they are “not optimistic” or that there is “no hope” – to which I always get to agreeably disagree by saying something like “with my name, I have no choice but to have hope” – which usually lightens the mood and (I’d like to think) maybe infects some hope to boot.

I’ve noticed during the pandemic how important hope is to people – I keep seeing murals and rocks with “hope” painted on them. Hope is what keeps us going when all seems lost and we want to throw in the towel. So here is some of the “hope” I have gathered – from a sign in NY to murals in Denver, to rocks in ABQ.  Even in the bleakest of times, there really is always hope!

“There was never a night or a problem that could defeat sunrise or hope.” Bernard Williams