The past few weeks have been filled with connecting, as if we were children enjoying a coloring book, drawing lines from one dot to another. First Dave Winer stopped by our home for lunch. The girls are still singing the Bloggers Theme Song he taught them.
The next day we left on a road trip to the Bay Area. There we had fun seeing friends, including a few bloggers: Katherine, David, Enoch and Tania.
I also enjoyed meeting many of my husband’s colleagues at the Open Source Applications Foundation, including bloggers Lisa Dusseault, Ducky Sherwood, Stuart Parmenter, Scott Rosenberg and Mitchell Baker.
One of my favorite moments of connection happened at the OSAF picnic. Mitch Kapor, Andy Hertzfeld and Ted were discussing where our country is now and where it is headed. The questions and problems that will remain in our nation, no matter who wins in November.
I stood there, listening, holding our one-year-old daughter. It was amazing to me to think of Mitch and Andy, what they had done when I was a child, and here was my own child in my arms, a toddler who can hardly talk, clinging to me. To think of the connections through time and space that somehow brought us together into the same piece of Palo Alto on a Sunday afternoon.
Although I don’t remember Mitch’s exact words, I know he started talking about hope. How important it is that people know they can make change happen. How important it is that people have hope.
And I thought to myself that it is hope that connects us. Hope is the thread and the gift we receive from those ahead of us in life. And hope is what binds us to our children, to the younger ones following behind, the lifeline we give them in troubled times.
Have hope! we say to the children. Hold onto Hope.
