Donald Clegg: Let’s remember the power of hope in dark seasons

The longest night whispered by, officially gifting us winter, and got out of Dodge under cover of darkness.

The white season is a mixed blessing, of course, for both people and critters. (Death is symbolized by white carnations in Japan.)

Our furry friends quietly hunker down for the barren months ahead, and we feast, despite – or in challenge of – intimations of our own mortality.

We two-legged types can avoid the brunt of winter, relying on the big brains that made Gore-Tex and borrowed wool, but I’m not sure that this implies superiority. Critters live in the now – aware, but (for the most part) not self-aware – and are spared angst over the future, including the length of winter and the Bush presidency.

But some are luckier than others, just like George. Take my cats.

Ellie seems part bear, hibernating under a comforter, and we don’t see much of her unless the can opener sounds tuna.

Minou stretches full length against my back most of the night, taking full advantage of his heater human.

People, though, have a hard time living in the present, beset by worries over both past and future, in nows that often are too stressful by half. (Christmas adds its share.)

Still, what light do we share that my kitties only dimly see?

Hope.

Hope for the holidays: a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Hope for the future.

And hope not just for tuna for me, but tuna for all, something no cat can experience.

Every December, I think of a New Year’s toast I heard long ago that sleeps in some stray corner of my noggin until near Christmas: “May the best of this year be the worst of next.” That may be the most hopeful little phrase I’ve ever heard.

It doesn’t matter that it scarcely, if ever, actually goes that way; life’s curveballs seem to hit us as often as we knock ‘em out of the park.

Hope and resiliency are the keys to getting back up. When (not if) Uncle Charlie hits you upside the head, are you elastic – another definition of resilient?

Life literally, and sometimes metaphorically, takes our elasticity. Then our resiliency goes, too, along with hope, and the slide begins.

It seems ironic to me that the Christmas season, with its spirit of sharing and gladly both giving and receiving – and, for some, the celebration of Jesus’ birth – occurs when the days are short and the nights cold, winter barely begun.

There’s no irony, though, for those without hope – just the grim reality of compressed life, pressured from both without and within, and even the shortest days feel too long.

I don’t mean to be gloomy here at year’s end; I’d just like to acknowledge the fact that being human isn’t easy, and we don’t always make our way with grace.

I think most of us know someone who’s depressed right now. Maybe you are.

It’s no crime. It’s not a picnic, either. I’d just like to extend a few encouraging words, in the hope (that word again) that it might help a few to find their lost resilience.

I probably talk out of my rear – excuse the expression – as often as the next person, but I know of what I speak here. There was a time, not that long ago, that depression had me by the throat.

It’ll probably surprise most people who know me, as I’m a fairly sunny person by natural disposition – and anyway, how else to survive these past six years, as a liberal?

I’ll put it bluntly: The current economy sucks. Never mind the stock market; half of us have zero, zilch, nada, invested there.

No stocks, no bonds, no 401(k), nothing. Never mind corporate profits. They’re not for you.

There’s a class war in this country, and capital, not labor, is winning big time.

None of this should be a surprise to most people who work for a living.

If, in this season of spending, you find yourself short of much hope because of your financial plight, you’re in the company of millions, many of whom only recently joined the bad-news club.

As a self-employed artist who markets and sells my own work, I rely almost totally on a prosperous middle class, now disappearing.

My depression was partly due to plummeting sales, something not easy to admit to – depression, or poor sales of paintings.

Tautologically speaking, when it comes to depression, you know it if you know it: flat affect, muted emotion, almost literally dragging yourself through the day.

I think I’ve weathered the storm, but if similar straits have you down, there’s hope around the corner. It’s called the Democratic majority.

Happy New Year, and let the subpoenas begin.

May the best of 2006, indeed, be the worst of ‘07.