Hope Is The Thing Found In The Meantime

Hannah Metry

When I graduated in December, I spent months preparing myself for The Wait. The post-commencement, pre-big-kid-job hunkering down that every graduate earns after 16 years of education. I tried to give myself a couple of weeks to just CHILL before jumping into my next thing, waiting for my teaching license to get processed so I could start work. I had intentions of traveling, or doing a big project, or drastically expanding my writing output. Instead, I spent most of the time watching Disney+ and trying not to worry about finding an apartment for June. One step at a time, Hannah. Once I had my license in hand, I picked up a gig as a long-term substitute for a teaching colleague and thought, ok, this buys me a few weeks. I put in an application for a job I was wholly unqualified for …and did some more waiting.

And then news started coming in about this virus with a weird name.

And then my plans for substitute teaching were cut short because all the schools closed.

And then the job I applied for realized I really wasn’t qualified and found someone else. No big surprise.

And I kept waiting, wishing I hadn’t burned through Disney+ so quickly.

If only I had known.

I know none of you have met my parents, but this whole situation can pretty solidly be summed up by the old adage, “if you met my parents, you’d understand.” I come from a long line of Midwestern workaholics, which means that three days of relative nothingness is about my limit before I start to go stir-crazy. The initial break immediately following graduation was enough chill time to last me a whole year. But what was supposed to turn into a couple of weeks turned into a couple of months. I can’t work in my field of study, because all the schools are closed, although I can still put in applications for teaching positions that are opening in the fall. And I, like everyone else, was left scrambling to figure out how to live in a world where everything has gone topsy-turvy but there’s also business as usual to do.

So, I did what any cash-strapped Millennial born and bred of the gig economy and with more than one global financial catastrophe under my belt would do…I got a job delivering pizzas. If there’s another thing I learned from my parents, it’s the fundamental idea that I’m not above any job, as long as there’s a job out there that needs doing. People need pizza? I can do pizza. In fact, I really like pizza. So, out I go, with my baseball cap firmly on my head and an already-beat up pair of sneakers on my feet. But before I start driving, I turn on the radio, and listen to the song that’s gotten generations before me through many a crisis of their own. Ooh child, things are gonna get easier…

Hannah Metry is a recent graduate of UW-Eau Claire’s English Education program. In her now-perpetual free time she can be found reading, listening to music, and going on long walks around the Third Ward…sometimes all at once. Her two biggest goals in life are to travel the world and get a dog, although not necessarily in that order.

Hope Is The Thing With Teeth

Debbie Campbell

My toddler eats Cheez-Its

like they’re going out of style,

like they’re the world’s next shortage,

right after toilet paper.

If you were on a hunt for my daughter,

you’d simply follow the crumbs.

In the early morning,

my toddler talks to herself,

whole conversations, philosophical ramblings,

laughter, and something not unlike

the escalating whispers of my childhood,

my sister and me

in the early morning light.

Some days, these days,

I feign sleep to listen.

I pay acute attention to every squeak,

every vowel, every elongated “o”—

we’re Midwestern, after all—

every clack of her teeth meeting,

her tongue clicking.

I search for meaning in this small,

brilliant world of words she’s created,

each morning new, each morning

just as chattery as the last.

My husband and I watched a show

on a cool night in Italy,

our feet too sore for more adventuring,

our stomachs too full for more gelato.

In it, a young couple buys a home

to discover an entire world

living in their old icebox.

They watch the rise and fall

of the dinosaurs,

cavemen, business men,

and women,

poets, teachers, astronauts,

a future world ours has

only begun to imagine

in the pages of science fiction.

In the early morning,

I imagine the rise and fall

of civilizations built on

toddler phonetics.

I imagine the dinosaurs

of her invented world,

the flora and fauna,

the people, and the future

our world has only begun to imagine

in the pages of science fiction

—all of this life existing

between a small,

brilliant set of teeth,

for babbling, philosophizing, inventing,

and Cheez-It eating.

Some days, these days,

the future seems especially uncertain.

The Italy we visited three months ago

doesn’t look like the same Italy.

The routines we’ve spent our adult lives building

have begun the fall after the rise.

But there’s hope in new beginnings,

like new mornings and new words,

and if my daughter can invent them

new each day, imagine

the world we could re-invent together

with some imagination, some quiet,

and a strong set of teeth.

Debbie Campbell is a writer, wife, mum, and Cheez-It supplier living in the Chippewa Valley.

Hope Is The Thing That Rarely Acts

Lisa Krawczyk

Hope is the thing that parades 

along the street a convincing 

show of solidarity rarely 

reckoning with what the song 

demands. The firefighter leans

outside the fire hydrant’s window,

flicking a cigarette; the last 

memory you have on the bus. 

The Irish-American’s stomping

the St. Patty’s parade; oblivious 

to the pandemic starting, their bagpipes

screaming into the afternoon 

down 29th Street. Lulling Hope to a slow 

pace, we now sing falsely Hope’s

praises. Until we answer 

to her song, we will never 

understand Hope’s true call. 

Lisa Krawczyk currently lives in Philadelphia, but they miss at least three things about the Chippewa Valley.

Hope is The Thing That Keeps Me Going

Ruth Blodgett

Hope is the thing that keeps me going. Hope that I will again see the powerful waves of Lake Superior, watch their crashes, and hear the deep thumps as they crash into recessed caves. Hope that I will feel the heavy yet cool spray on my face as I stand on the rugged rock that dares to jut out above the caves. From my vantage point on that rock, I will look out over water as far as you can see, as clear as crystal made in Waterford, and as active as an angry serpent. The backdrops of rugged shoreline and tall slender trees that emanate the calming scent of cedar make it seem other worldly. Our trip has been cancelled, but I have hope that we will see it again, maybe with the reflection of autumn leaves and the slight forming of ice at the edges. It is beautiful any time of year, and we will wait.   

Ruth Blodgett is a native of Eau Claire, WI, currently residing in Madison, WI. Although Madison is nice, Eau Claire is still my home, where I grew up, raised my own family and still have many friends and memories. I like to come back, every once in awhile, to reconnect and remember.

Hope Is This Moment

Tracy Schuldt Helixon

Hope is one cup of sugar

one stick of butter

my pandemic anxiety

firmly packed

brown sugar

applesauce

Time to mix.

She’s eleven now

no longer so excited about this cookie-making business

At age four, she burst with

Delight

Tonight’s motivation is product, not process

Still, I’ll take it

Gratefully

Two cups of flour

baking soda

salt.

More mixing.

“Good job. Remember to scrape the sides.”

She nods.

Hope is when we pour the chips

She steers the spatula through thick batter

making sure

chocolatey goodness

reaches

every

single

cookie

Hope is sliding the tray in the oven

closing the door

waiting

“Smells good!” says my husband.

And her teenage brothers

emerge from their rooms.

Hope

Is

This

Moment

Standing in the kitchen

together

the five of us

bustling

talking

laughing

pouring milk.

I savor the warmth

and the sweetness

and maybe even

a cookie.

Tracy Schuldt Helixon is an author and teacher who seeks out creativity and good in the world and can’t stop smiling each time she finds it. Her first picture book, Little Isaac’s BIG Adventure (2012), earned a Literary Classics International Book Award. Her historical fiction chapter book, Caleb’s Lighthouse (2017), was described by reviewer Rosi Hollinbeck as “an early middle grade book that is about as sweet as they come.” Tracy is currently working on a faith-based historical novel called Finding Home, inspired by her adventures in Ireland and stories from her Irish American family. Learn more at www.tracyhelixon.com.

Hope Is The Thing In Hell, Michigan

Jodie Arnold

Hell, Michigan is an unincorporated community with a whopping THREE business fronts and a population of 72 people. And I was mayor for one day. Yes, you read that correctly. I was mayor of Hell for one day.

Let’s back up a minute.

 I just had one of those “quarantine birthdays” and honestly, I didn’t mind. I’m 41-years-old. All I really wanted for my birthday was to drink before noon and not clean the house, which is coincidentally what I’ve been doing a lot since March.

My fiancé’ had purchased my “mayor of Hell for a day” birthday gift with the intentions of us actually visiting there (obviously this was in “pre-Covid times”). Then he looked at the prices for flights and pretty soon that idea was abandoned. I was left with an extremely socially-distanced mayoral term and a huge packet of unusual “Hell—themed” merchandise, including legal ownership of one-square-foot of Hell (I even got dirt), a coffee mug, and devil horns. I wasn’t really sure what it all meant.

He casually mentioned to me, “I think they might be calling you a few times today or something?”

The first call from Tristan came during the morning. “WHAT IN THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN DOING ALL MORNING?” she shouted at me before following up with a, “I heard it’s your damn birthday and you’re mayor of Hell for the day so let’s get this swearing in ceremony over.” We went through whatever one does to become Hell’s mayor and then she said,” Your accent…are you from Wisconsin?”

It turns out Tristan has family from all over Wisconsin. She loves Point Beer. She’s been to Chippewa Falls. We talked about the Midwest and the general “weirdness” of life right now. At some point, it stopped being a funny call about some temporary mayoral gimmick and we just started talking.

 Tristan has been out of work since March 26. “Work” being running the tourism of a place like Hell, Michigan. You can imagine with a name like that, people from all over want to come for at least the magnet and photo next to the town sign. She’s been trying to figure out unemployment, but couldn’t get an answer. She told me she had to keep coming to work because otherwise it would all go away and then what would happen to the town? She owed it to people like me to make the most of my day in Hell.

 Her entire day was committed to harassing me with phone calls, demanding me to make laws for the town (I decreed the town could only drink Busch Light, and that was a problem, as it should be) and eventually having me impeached around 6 p.m. She was getting paid for none of this and that was not lost on me.

After my impeachment, Tristan gave me tips on a cheap way to get to Hell. (the jokes write themselves, folks). I promised we’d visit. She said she’ll always be there.

Jodie Arnold just graduated from UWEC with her Master of Arts in Creative Writing. She writes plays, creative non-fiction, radio dramas, and poetry and has been published in Volume One, Twig, Nourrir Magazine, and NOTA. When she’s not writing, she’s co-hosting a podcast called “Cool & Unusual Punishment” and making fun of men (it’s almost always men) who post Craigslist Missed Connections. She’s a mother of twin boys and has plans to get married once she can grocery shop with her fiancé’ again.

Hope Is The Thing That Reminds Me Of The Strength In My Thoughts

Lisa David Olson

Hope is the thing that reminds me of the strength in my thoughts.

I’m on the frontline, working extra hours, and I’m being exposed to possible illness every day.

Hope reminds me to replace the frightened feelings with one of appreciation for the opportunity to provide for my family.

I read somewhere that it takes three positive thoughts to squish out one negative one. There are moments I think I can’t possibly think of three positive thoughts, so my go-to happy thought is remembering my brand-new bedsheets. They’re the softest sheets I’ve ever owned (one positive thought), they are moss green (that’s cool too, I’ve never had moss green bedsheets), and they line the nest I share with my patient, kind and very funny husband.

Hope is the thing that forces me to find the sunshine, the appreciation that I am healthy and able to work, the reminder to keep replacing a negative thought with three positive thoughts. Even when it seems impossible, and all I can do in the thick of the gray moment is to think of the soft sheets I’ll snuggle into tonight with my sweet man.

Hope is that thing.

I am Lisa David Olson—a speaker, humorist, author and podcast host. Finding the weird and quirky stories are my current fabulous adventure, when I’m not at the day job. I ran and performed in an award-winning comedy troupe for two decades, and boy, are my abs tired! Humor saved my life. Heck, it still does.

Hope is the Old Man's Beard

Ty Phelps

One afternoon, before all this, I wrote about gray. Gray will go places. Gray is the faded snow of a Wisconsin February piled high in a shopping mall parking lot, speckled with exhaust. It’s certain eyes in a certain light, or, occasionally, the Big Lake, or wolves, though their shading is more of a confluence of black and white and in-betweenness. Like the granite that heaves itself out along the North Shore, Precambian bedrock birthed 2.7 billion years ago. Or lichen that clings to the rock, or Usnea, another sort, the Old Man’s Beard, climbing grayish-green in the trees.

You can follow your gray thoughts and arrive in these ghost woods, each tree a universe of messy living, each wisp of the Old Man’s Beard a fractal thread to somewhere else.

Lichen is the world’s weirdest construct. This is science. Part algae, part fungus, two biological kingdoms combining into a single living organism. They’re debating if bacteria is in the mix too, which would bring the kingdom total to three. Lichen is like if humans were also trees but were still humans but were really trees, cellulose-and-lite blending into some newness, lungs and limbs and photosynthesis on a razor’s edge of liminal life, a stuck-between, a spread-across.

Old Man’s Beard is the color of a long, lonely Sunday afternoon where time stretches out in front of you and you’re too sad to nap, too despondent to talk, too brain-tired to read or write or create. It’s the color of all the time, right now. Or it’s possibly not.

Have you seen it? It’s beautiful. The way it clings, wispy, to tree trunks. It grows in tassels, up to twenty centimeters long. Some think it kills trees, but really it’s taking advantage if a tree loses its ability to create leaves; then there’s more light for the algae part. This is merely how things work. The world is often less beautiful than we want it to be, though sometimes it is better, too.

The Old Man’s beard isn’t nefarious, though it resembles will-o-the-wisps hovering in the forests. But it doesn’t try to lure you away from your mother, or your lover, or your soul. It is content with its duality in a way so many of us are not. Why is it so hard for humans to be more than one thing at once? We need poets to emerge periodically, muddy and wild, to remind us that this is possible.

Lichen reproduces asexually, but this fact does not necessarily have any bearing on its proclivity for pleasure. Does the Old Man’s Beard curl its tendrils around itself? Does it care about friction, in either the physical or metaphorical sense? Does it whisper love notes through the rumor mill of forest-floor mycelium?

I want the Old Man’s Beard to become the new decorative gourd. Hung like garlands in homes during holidays. Subject to viral McSweeneys’ articles. Clumped inside cornucopias. Spilling out as a bounty of hope.

 Ty Phelps is a writer, teacher, and musician. He won The Gravity of the Thing’s 2016 Six Word Story Contest, was a finalist for Gigantic Sequins flash fiction contest, and has published work in Writespace and the 1001 Journal. Ty is an MFA candidate at VCU.

Hope Is The Thing We're Sailing Toward

Charles Payseur

Aero imagines themself like a Greek god, entering the world fully formed and armored. Pallas Athena, full of wisdom, or something like it. They've been spending time in the cultural databanks, and if they fear at times that they would be likened more to Bubo, they cut off that logic tree before it can fully blossom.

The ship is silent but for the gentle swish of plastic hands pulling plastic bodies through the corridors, gravity a law of the universe but here more like a distant shore they're all sailing toward. Aero has never known the pull of a terrestrial body on their frame, never felt a breeze on their synthetic skin. They were built in transit, a replacement for a Caretaker damaged in an accident. They help maintain the ship, the rows and rows of pods and fabricators and all the stored genetic material they'll need.

The black of space cradles them, a night only distance will bring to dawn—a distance measured in centuries. Aero maintains, and when the work is light lets their mind wander into the stores of texts and images, sounds and videos. They extrapolate, imagining the beings they've never seen physically, those the ship has been launched to save. Stored in radiation-shielded stasis, vials and vials of humanity, waiting to be reconstructed and reawakened. Aero knows them mostly as numbers: temperature and volume, pressure and mass. Seals unbroken. Mission ongoing.

They wonder sometimes at the decision to launch, the knowledge that it couldn't be humans to pilot the last great hope for the species and for all the species collected in the vast holds of the ship. Aero has done the calculations, the variables, the chances of success, as they must have. Less than a single percent. Space is just so vast, the margin of error so small. Yet here they are.

The world they are leaving is only a story now. A memory captured in words. But it is a beautiful story, and when Aero tires of the endless monitoring, the slight course corrections, the sudden panicked klaxons as Something Goes Wrong... When the weight of all the empty space presses hard around them, they think of a shore drawing nearer, of the day when they will feel the embrace of gravity, the reassurance of a distant horizon.

And somewhere, through the alleyways and corridors of the ship, there's a movement of air that feels almost like a breeze.

Charles Payseur is a reader, writer, and reviewer of speculative fiction. His work has appeared in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, Lightspeed Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and many more. A four time Hugo Award finalist, he spends his days in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, shoveling snow and being tolerated by his cats and husband.

Hope Is Purple

Jim Alf

Isolation with time on one’s hands is for the imaginative the Club Sega Arcade of mental games. It is a factory for fancies. It is the breeding ground for hopeless despair. In such situations thoughts formed whole from the detritus of splintered observations congeal into mirages too horrid to exist anywhere but the desert of phantasmal imagery. A favorite feeding ground for those thoughts is a buffet of bodily signs and symptoms.

My symptoms were few but signs were posted with regularity (remember that word) along the road to the most dangerous of destinations: self-diagnosis. That repeated sign was the gradual lack of need for the most hoarded, most fought over, decidedly topmost item on the list of civilized necessities in a pandemic of viral death threats: that soft, white squeezable roll of paper hung by the throne. That observation, with some unusual weight loss and lessened appetite morphed easily into dark suspicions of impending decline of health, surgery and debilitation and eventual memorial service with a bluegrass band playing I’ll Fly Away and friend’s maudlin recitations of what a jolly good fellow he was before he flew away. Morbid thought is like yeast, expanding beautifully but full of gaseous bubbles, an apt metaphor because that was my only production. Surely my primary physician would sound alarms, begin testing and schedule treatments, probably too late. She brushed me off.

I talked on the phone to the clinic receptionist, she passed me on to a nurse who noted my medical complaint and said she would talk to the doctor. I asked for a test kit by mail. I was certain such dire observations would result in a call from the doctor post haste. The nurse called. The doctor says if it gets worse call in a week. From the mortician’s? Hope evaporated like a rain drop in Death Valley.

Phone calls apprised next of kin, Powers of Attorney were reviewed, obituary was updated and plans for a dependent formed. What else was needed? Downsize now! Too late. Let the survivors do it. Hope Gospel can bring a truck. Then, what luck: I was notified my annual checkup at the VA was two days away and the doctor would call at 8 a.m. on Friday. Friday, the day of fish fries, baked potato, slaw and I didn’t dare eat. I could only hope that phone call would be in time. It was.

The call was three minutes early, fortuitous because every minute counted. I had my list of symptoms ready, BP and pulse taken. Fear billowed like a cloud. I recited my list. He asked if I had pain. No pain. Bloating? None. Itch all over? Never heard of it. “Drink plenty of prune juice,” he said.

I had an unopened jug in the fridge. Hope came in a tall glass, was purple, cold and tasty. Efficient, too. The treatment took ten minutes, a short time later the cure lasted ten more. The call to reserve a full order of fish, five minutes. Hope survives, banishes fear, lights the way. Life goes on.

Jim Alf is the author of When The Ferries Still Ran: History and Stories From the Chippewa Bottoms.

Hope Is The Thing Deep Down

Pamela Livingston

Surely we must all
Be in our cocoons,
Pounded and displaced
By all the news.
Unravelled through -
We’re not quite new.
Chemicalization
It has been called -
The old basis of our belief
is gone. And in its place
A phosphorescent song - HOPE
was in us all along.

We in creation, are blind
At first, to see... the light
At the end of the tunnel
Is a little seed in me.
Or... the rise after the fall.
‘I have high hopes for you’.
The last words my mother
     spoke to me,
     Earth hums to all.

Surely we must be in this
Purge time, this merge time -
Could it be Hope
that makes a Butterfly?

But... fingernails, and claws -
We are not mush!
To reach
Into this earth
Is such a rush! In Spring
When all is Hope
And hope’s in
everything.

Pamela Livingston is at present hunkered down, and perched up above downtown Eau Claire in a small upstairs apartment, appreciating a view of trees, birds and squirrels.

Hope Is The Thing That Quells Fear

Erica Nerbonne

In fourth grade, I wrote that fear was stronger than hope. 9/11, stranger danger, and scraped knees—the world was full of fear, and it prevented me from doing.

In my fourth year of college, I could no longer write, couldn’t sit up nor hold a pen, but I could feel that hope was stronger than fear. As my chronic health condition worsened, my organs began to fail. I relied on feeding tubes, IV fluids, and the swift hands of nurses. My mom slept quietly on the tattered cot next to my hospital bed. When I tried to shift from sleeping on my back to my side, I was trapped in the sludge and drudge of illness; I couldn’t move my arms, my legs, or my neck. As I lie in the bed, stuck on my petechia-covered back, I was petrified until a whisper broke through the dark, “Do you need anything, honey?”  Hope is the mom who still checks on you when you are twenty-two and need her help. Hope is the whisper that quells fear. Hope was there.

Now, I write that hope is stronger than fear. When I tossed and turned in bed last night, I was bombarded by the doubts and dreads of a world that might end. As I sat up, I was panicked until the gentle whisper of my dog’s snoring interrupted my dark thoughts. Hope is the rescue dog who sleeps soundly, warming your lap. Hope is the whisper that quells fear. Hope is still here.

There are fourth graders who will be tempted to write that fear is stronger than hope. Global warming, poverty, and pandemics—the world can be full of fear, but it cannot prevent us from doing. Just listen for hope. Hope is the sigh of a nurse, settling in at home after a long night. Hope is the murmur of music that your neighbor dances to next door. Hope is the mumbled “I love you” at the end of a quick phone call. Hope is the whisper that quells fear. Hope is near.

Erica Nerbonne is an Eau Claire native. She is currently studying Spanish Linguistics at UW-Eau Claire and is excited to be (finally) graduating this May. She will then go on to pursue graduate studies in Ohio, focusing on English Language and Literature. She loves reading, baking, and taking long walks with her dogs throughout the Eastside Hill neighborhood. 

Hope Is The Thing That Binds

Connie Russell

This national crisis has left us stunned. We mourn the loss of so many people and weep for the dedication of our health care workers, police, firefighters, and first responders. But in the midst of this crisis, our humanity and caring shine through on so many fronts, and these bring us hope.

I have lunch on a regular basis with a group of women that all belong to the same organization. Many of those friendships have been casual. But as time goes by and we use group email to make connections, I find that I get to know these women in ways that I never have before, and our friendships deepen. I now know that Laurel has a daughter in law with a double lung transplant. I know Deb is sewing masks for health care facilities; she has taken time off from sewing hygiene kits for the young women in San Salvador. I heard from Mary Ann that the folks in River Falls are putting teddy bears in windows to give joy to children on walks with their parents. Sue is painting on silk scarves—a talent of which I wasn’t aware. Marge is baking bread again and, sadly, Nancy’s son has a serious medical issue. We send silly jokes to each other, and we talk about walking together as the weather warms. We are bound to each other by our organizational mission but also because we care and sustain hope for the days ahead.

On other fronts, the local library staff is thinking of ways we can give back to the businesses who take out memberships with the Friends of the Library and just today, I received from a classmate of long ago a note and pictures from the spring picnic at our country school when I was in seventh grade. I’ll write back to her. A high school classmate that I’ve rarely heard from sends me political cartoons on Messenger on a daily basis now, and my two sisters and brother are now in contact nearly every day. While we can’t see and touch those we love, we can listen to them and try to give hope to each other.

I text each day with a long time friend with a suppressed immune system, and our book club will use  Zoom to have a session. We aren’t called the Greedy Readers for nothing.  I’ve stopped procrastinating and read some nonfiction books that I kept ignoring, and my husband and I ordered a new game that we’ve yet to master so that we can take breaks from the constant news barrage.

Once this crisis is over, may we remember the little acts of kindness and the need to care enough about others to connect and deepen the friendships we have as well as reach out to others to give them hope.

Connie Russell lives in Chippewa Falls where she reads, writes, and spends time with her husband, family, and friends. Connie is a past participant in the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild retreats. She has published her memoir as well as articles in Volume One, Language Arts and Wisconsin English Journal. She has also written chapters for three professional books.

Hope Is The Thing Our Hunger Thirsts Upon

Rachel Werner

Hope is the thing

our hunger thirsts upon.

Despite doubt,

                        despair,

                                    and ourselves

—most of all.

The pride of man,

Responds to Ego’s call.

A seductive lure

—enclosing hearts—

behind stonewalls.

We deny Hope’s gifts,

To our detriment.

Undeterred, she returns—

A benevolent savior,

in the end.

Feasting upon Joy;

Humbled by Folly.

Empathy feeds us,

is the moral—

of Humanity’s story.

Rachel Werner is the Content Marketing Specialist for Taliesin Preservation; guest faculty at The Highlights Foundation & Hugo House; and a We Need Diverse Books program volunteer. Her work has appeared in Fabulous Wisconsin, BLK+GRN, BRAVA, Madison Magazine, Entrepreneurial Chef and Hobby Farms Magazine. Connect with her on Instagram @therealscript.

Hope Is The Thing That Might Print

Jeff DeGrave

So here we are: day whatever of the Coronamadness. We have moved from the natural world into sanitized zones of plastic, latex, and virtuality. Our desire to work, talk, and communicate with our fellow shuttered humans has never been more subject to the capabilities—and incapabilities—of modern technology. Enter: my all-in-none printer: the Epson XP-640.

Eppie and I fell in love three years ago. There she was—a humble bottom-feeder, but capable of actualizing print commands through the ether, all the while comporting herself in a space well within regulation breadbox size. She was “wireless, creative, and superior”—with an external tray dedicated to photo paper and DVD covers. She could do it all: print, copy, and scan—and even fax in times of pure desperation. It was time to take her home. And introduce her to my wife. And dog.

At first, we all got along. Eppie’s 10 color prints per minute were clearly right out of the 21st century. Compared to our previous printing assistant, the HP Laser Jet 4000—a machine that somehow simultaneously emoted the very best of Gutenberg and Battlestar Galactica—Eppie generated 600 dpi color prints beyond our wildest Pantone imaginations. All the while free of notable dot gain. Life was good and we were all printing happily together.

Until one day things changed. Eppie’s diseased intentions began to reveal themselves. The dog was first to sniff out all of her “late night updates” and her surreptitious “illegal firmware protocol activity.” The relentless all-hour screeching and chattering was unbearable. And during the day she had morphed into some sort of infected technological alien mercilessly devouring reams of helpless paper between her suffocating idler rollers. Her crossmember engine controller eventually became unhinged. And finally, one day, her Crucial CT12872AF53E 1GB 533MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM PC2-4200 was no longer fully buffered. And all the printing stopped.

We decided to look into Eppie’s past to see if others had been duped by her “expression premium” and lab-quality custom borderless capabilities. We were not alone. She had gone state-to-state and town-to-town luring in one suitor after the next with her seemingly harmless 2.7 inch LCD command display and cutting-edge duplex printing. An outraged Washingtonian asserted that her “touch screen interface was not friendly.” A New Yorker cried out into cyberspace, “Shame on you for your deceptive and underhanded business practices!” While a desperate woman from California stated he would use Eppie “as a doorstop or scour the Internet for some shady way to roll back the newest firmware update.”

After weeks of sitting idly in our homes, we finally rid ourselves of Eppie this morning—along with her equally unscrupulous soulmates Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Noir 310. Our house of three in quarantine now seems stunningly spacious and screechless and cozy. We talk about life before the madness. And afterward. And the stunning full color borderless images that our new “superior and versatile” XP-7100 might be printing for us very, very soon.

Jeff DeGrave is a writer and world traveler.

Hope Is The Thing Penciled In For Sunday afternoon

Courtney Kueppers

Sundays have a reputation for being scary, but for me, they are sacred. Not because I go to church — I usually do not. (Sorry, mom and dad). But because the seventh day of the week (or is it the first? I can never remember) tends to be completely devoid of obligations. 

You remember obligations, don’t you? Friends’ birthday gatherings; professional happy hours; that play you bought tickets to months ago and now somehow the date has snuck up on you. The kind of plans that feel great to make and even better to break — or at least they used to. 

Now, these sound like things to daydream about from our separate bunkers, formerly known as living rooms, as we stare out the window at the afternoon sun, hoping a cardinal pays us a visit today. But in the chaos of the busy lives we once lived, the weight of our many obligations could quickly feel heavy. 

In the world B.C. (before coronavirus), I carefully made sure to not commit to any such events on Sundays. The occasional brunch or hike with a pal was sometimes permissible in the morning hours, but come noon — I might as well have turned into a pumpkin.   

It was my little retreat from the world. A time I fiercely guarded as my own. A chance to reset before the week ahead. 

Now, the need for this refuge seems less necessary — at least not in one designated chunk of time. Lately, as I shelter in place, YouTube yoga practices have replaced the time I once spent in traffic. Home-cooked meals have taken the place of the pre-made kale salad I once scarfed down for lunch five days a week. While I take a stroll in the afternoons, I call my friends to check in on how they’re feeling.

These are all luxuries I feel both grateful, and sometimes guilty, to be experiencing right now. It’s not all hunky dory: I have lost many hours of sleep to anxiety about what the future will or will not look like. But for the most part, I know I have immense privilege right now, in an undeniably scary and uncertain time. My days may lack clear boundaries between work and personal time, but they also somehow feel more balanced. 

However, the shift left me with a hole in my once strict schedule: what to do with Sunday afternoons? The answer is at once both retro and completely of the moment: family time.

These days, we gather on Sunday afternoons with a little help from our new friend Zoom. Bridging the miles between my Atlanta apartment and my Midwestern roots, we come together for game night. 

First it was charades, then Kueppers-family Jeopardy, which required knowledge of family history and memories of childhood trips in order to be victorious. There’s been an in-house scavenger hunt, a couple rounds of “categories” and Boggle. I’m happy to report that our fierce sense of competition, penchant for sarcasm and deep love for one another translates just fine via video chat. 

As we laugh, talk about the state of the world and sip beers from our respective homes, I wonder why we haven’t always made this a priority. 

For right now, it’s the only standing social commitment I have on my calendar every week: right there on Sunday afternoons. 

Courtney Kueppers is a writer and journalist who lives in Atlanta. She’s originally from the Twin Cities, attended UW-Eau Claire and formerly worked for the Leader-Telegram and Wisconsin Public Radio.

Hope Is The Thing That Repeats

Jeannie E. Roberts

Waves shift

activate

appear

in intervals

like dominoes

flow

in recurrent display.

As liquidity cycles

fractality unfolds

minerals rest

beneath buoyancy.

Encircled by atomic theory

and quantum mechanics

my hope recurs

in periodicity

as atomic orbitals

build

repeat

electron configurations.

In chemical drenches

and elemental curls

my molecular mass

attempts to fathom

the submicroscopic actions

of electrons in matter

here

my hope repeats

in predictable variations of marvel.

Jeannie E. Roberts has authored six books, including The Wingspan of Things (Dancing Girl Press), Romp and Ceremony (Finishing Line Press), Beyond Bulrush (Lit Fest Press), and Nature of it All (Finishing Line Press). She is also author and illustrator of Rhyme the Roost! A Collection of Poems and Paintings for Children (Daffydowndilly Press, an imprint of Kelsay Books) and Let's Make Faces! (author-published). She is poetry editor of the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs. When she’s not reading, writing, or editing, you can find her drawing and painting, or outdoors photographing her natural surroundings.

Hope Is The Thing I Hum

Bonni Knight

Hope sends me on a quest for solace. I begin my search in music. I force myself to try on various versions of Ode to Joy.

First: A string quartet (too sedate). Next: A mad German chorus wailing “Freude, schoener Goetterfunken” (too angsty). Finally: Desperate, I go punk with the raucous rock of the Adicts (too cynical).

Hope tells me to abandon my trip to Italy on the miraculous miniscule-butterfly-effect chance that my distance will somehow spare my elderly family there.

Hope digs deep, gouging into my non-spiritual soul until I feel secretly, silently, slightly envious of those with faith. 

Hope gives me words and actions to comfort others, because this is my survival skill: being there. But I find no song for myself.

Hope pushes me back to music. This time What a Wonderful World cues up. I’m angry and scared, but still clinging to hope by a musical thread. I wander to Louis Armstrong (too optimistic), swing by Innocence Mission, of all places (too naive), until I land at Joey Ramone (hmmm, maybe?).

Giving up on hope, I take an empty egg carton, a small pile of dirt, and some lettuce seeds. I mean, who doesn’t love a good salad in the midst of a pandemic? Absurdity wrestles with anxiety. But still, I scoop another helping of rich damp soil into the carton, tamping it in, before I dig a small divot, sprinkle in a couple tiny seeds, a tinch more water, and cover carefully with another dose of dirt.

And, as I tuck the seeds gently into the soil, I envision the little sprouts snuggling in their beds, growing, reaching toward the sun. I can almost see those babes stretching their tiny green tendrils of hope. This act of planting and watering and sunning these egg cartons of dirt, this is a leap of faith, which is almost hope.

As I scoop and dig and sprinkle and tamp, Joey Ramone’s desperate, cancer-shaded rock wriggles in my ear, and I find myself humming, “I see trees of green, red roses, too. …”

And I think to myself … hope is the thing I hum.


Bonni Knight is a storyteller who struggles to write. She taught French and all the communicative arts for 30 years before setting off into the woods with a husband, two slobbery, affectionate dogs, and one willfully indifferent cat.

Hope Is The Thing That Knows

Jodi Vandenberg-Davies

Hope is the thing that knows

What we cannot know.

It’s a pandemic spring in Wisconsin.

The floods came last time the earth spun this way,

And they receded. 

The political apocalypse arrived years ago now,

smudging all that we had written.

Nothing was engraved, it turns out.

Change exposes all that we thought we knew.

I feel the soft earth under my feet this morning

On the marsh running trail.

Yesterday the earth felt so vulnerable.

Now, as a scourge of death and disease

Passes among us humans,

The earth resonates like a solid home,

Away from the sidewalks and streets

A bed of sticks and dormant grass holds me up.

Throaty voices of the geese pierce the grey and insist on spring.

Bold blue jay’s colors shout against the misty, distant sun.

Snow is forced back by warm circles of tree trunks.

Ice is mottled, ridged, patched, thin and fraying

Or thick and angry white-grey, riddled with snow.

And then it’s water and the sky is kissing it

Sharp red lines of leafless bushes line the water’s edge

Vines curlicue up and around sister trees.

Everything is embracing everything else

What do we ever know about who or what is fragile?

Jodi Vandenberg-Daves is a professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and the author of Modern Motherhood:  An American History (Rutgers University Press, 2014), various other academic publications, and a self-published collection of poetry, Poems in the Mother Tongue. 

Hope Is A Goodnight Message Over Microsoft Teams

Emily Kassera

The thoughts my 8th graders choose to vocalize fascinate me. Sometimes, they’re sweet: “You’re like the best listener.” Sometimes they’re backhanded: “If you weren’t old and if you wore cooler shoes, I would totally want to be your friend.” (I’m 23 for reference…)

But most of the time, they’re contrary: “I don’t want to be here.”

That one’s my favorite. Most students mutter it subconsciously from time to time, but a few really enjoy the way it feels on their tongues. Like an Olympic javelin toss, I can see them preparing to launch those words. I’ll be up there, jiving with the lesson, other kids are loving it, I’ll start circling the classroom for one-on-one help, and these folks… they’ll look me dead in the eye when I get to them and let it fall from their lips like it’s weightless: I don’t want to be here.

It used to crush me, but not any more. How could I let it? They’re only saying what we’re all thinking. Do I sometimes wish I could stand up in the middle of a stressful meeting and say, “I don’t want to be here”? Yes. Do I think it on particularly tough days when I have things outside of school causing me worry? Absolutely. The thing is, “I don’t want to be here” is just the blunt way of saying all of the things adults have invented niceties to damper. How could I fault a 14-year-old for that?

Right now, however, the global pandemic has quite literally forced us to “not be here.” Schools are officially closed for the remainder of the year. While I’m devastated to lose the in-person aspect of my student teaching semester, I couldn’t help but let my mind drift to the “I don’t want to be here” kids. Were they shocked? Were they elated? Were they toasting sparkling white grape juice and making celebratory TikToks?

I didn’t know the answer, but a week after schools closed I sent all of my students a check in message to ask how they were and assure them I was available and eager to stay connected through our district’s chosen platform, Microsoft Teams. I got several responses later that day with everything from Netflix recommendations, to photos of pets, to recipes for their mom’s banana bread.

That was almost one month ago, now–one month since I sent that first check in–but just two nights ago, my phone buzzed on my dresser. It was 10pm. I grumbled and rose reluctantly from bed to check it. There was a reply… to my one-month old message, from the poster child of “I don’t want to be here”: goodnight ms kassera. i miss ur class.

A native of Chippewa Falls, WI, Emily Kassera is an English and theatre education student at the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire. After wrapping up her student teaching semester this spring, Emily hopes to find a job in the area where she can read, and write, and do theatre with those hip Chippewa Valley teens.