dscn11931It’s pouring, it’s raining, might winter finally be waning? No complaints about the rain from this corner.  Better than snow.  Way better than snow.  It’s been cold and damp but there was something delightful about waking up up  yesterday morning to the sound of rain spattering against the roof and watching throughout the day as the cat and dog downpours reduced the mountain of snow beside the driveway from Kilimanjaro status to a small gritty island littered with last year’s unraked leaves.

Would that this downpour could wash away the pervasive doom clinging like cobwebs to the national consciousness. Dour begets dour, doing no one the least bit of good. My yoga teacher offered up the term “intelligent optimism” in class this week.  I took a shine to the phrase right away. Intelligent optimism isn’t hiding one’s head in the sand and ignoring the avalanche of crises tumbling about us. And it’s not reacting with mindless platitudes in the face of real tragedies.

Facing adversity with intelligent optimism means taking note of the inescapable economic realities swirling around us and choosing not to get swept up in the maelstrom. Intelligent optimism finds something in each day to celebrate, something to be grateful for; it acts upon the opportunity, however small, to offer a helping hand or a kind word.

Intelligent optimism waits out the cold and slashing rain, confident that one day spring will return again.