As a cold front (cross your fingers) drifts past my window, dare I say it, I feel hopeful.
Not just for cooler temps, but for something else. Something good.
Yesterday I felt it for the first time in a while.
And today? It’s still here. But actually…It wasn’t just yesterday.
Let me back up.
A few weeks ago, we stopped at this café off the highway, the kind with handwritten signs and a cash register that’s been there since the ‘80s. I sat by the window for twenty minutes, waiting for a table, quietly watching people leave.
Every. Single. One of them walked out with a pie.
Rhubarb. Cherry. Buttermilk. Chocolate. Pecan.
Each one, warm in a box with a label written in Sharpie.
And here’s what stopped me:
Every person smiled a little as they picked it up. Not at anyone else. Just… to themselves.
It was so small. So human. So good.
And I thought,
We’re all just trying to feel a little more okay.
Once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.
Hope. Everywhere. Disguised as the ordinary, hiding in plain sight.
I felt it at a midnight pumpkin patch, where strangers laughed and took photos under lights someone had strung by hand. It was chaotic. Beautiful. Weirdly peaceful.
I saw it in a barbecue joint, when an older man pulled a pint of ice cream out of his grocery bag after lunch. Two spoons. No hesitation. Just him and his wife.
I heard it in a group of strangers singing John Lennon together.
In:
Babies laughing
Waking up to a house full of people I love
Women
The smell of just-watered grass that somehow smells like childhood
The first sip of coffee when the world is still quiet
Kindness that doesn’t need credit
People choosing softness, even when the world isn’t soft
It caught me off guard. How often I’d been mistaking chaos for proof of decline, when really, it’s just evidence of life.
Anyway, hope keeps showing up. No announcement. No fanfare. Just… a quiet nudge that says:
You’re not alone.
And since we’re here,
Here’s a list of things that bring me hope inside the house this month. Small comforts. A few simple upgrades that carry more weight than they should. & coziness.
This is the real good stuff.
In a world that often forgets softness, that’s the most powerful design tool we have.