I am full of tough hope.
As lots of you know, I’m taking a children’s lit module this term, which means I’m reading about three kids’ books a week. They’re great and this week was boy adventure novels week so our set reading included the surprisingly immersive Brendon Chase by B.B. and the 150 page story Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. I’d not read either before studying the module but enjoyed both. Some of the animal skinning etc., especially in Brendon Chase, was a bit hard on the stomach of someone who hasn’t eaten meat in about three years now, but the danger felt real in both and the adventure felt real in both.
You may have seen that earlier today I posted a quotation from Hatchet about “tough hope”. I finished the book at 11.50am today and have been thinking over that passage ever since (it’s now 3.45pm and I ought to be thinking about other things — my dissertation, for example — but alas). This is it:
Not hope that he would be rescued – that was gone.
But hope in his knowledge. Hope in the fact that he could learn and survive and take care of himself.
Tough hope, he thought that night. I am full of tough hope.
Slowly I am becoming tougher, more confident in the fact that I can learn and survive and take care of myself. Brian had this realisation when he was thirteen, but his circumstances were quite exceptional :) I also don’t think that’s something we (or at least I) learn only once. You have to keep asserting it to yourself like a mantra: I can learn and survive and take care of myself. I am full of tough hope.
