What do you hope for?

And what are you going to do about it?

Hope is not a door, but a sense that there might be a door at some point, some way out of the problems of the present moment even before that way is found or followed.

~~Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark

morning altar

Sometimes, I sit down to write these posts with a clear intention and subject in mind, and then write something completely different. This is one such instance. Warning: this post is rather off-topic and has little to do with clay. I meant to write the second part of a previous post, and the idea was to take you through the next stages of making a mug. I am sure I will get there and that post will also soon land in your inboxes. But not today. Today, my words came together to send you this post. So here we are.

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On Wednesday the kiln stopped working in the middle of a glaze firing. It was about 7 pm and it had been on since 12:00. It was at 800 ºC, having almost reached the point where the really slow climb starts, going from 980 ºC to the target temperature of 1150 ºC over 5 hours. When the power went out , I was in the process of making dinner and the oven was on too. Outside, the first storm of the year was just dissipating, the thunder now barely audible in the distance.

“I knew it!” I screamed. “The f**ing storm!”

It had happened before. This time, however, the power outage was only in our house; it wasn’t a regular power cut, the fuses had blown, the oven stopped heating, dinner would be delayed.

So what?

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This morning (yesterday, for you), on Monday, 2nd of June 2025, we woke up to the dismal results of the Polish Presidential elections. After the shocking results of the Legislative elections in Portugal just last month, I had hoped Poland would do better. Why I still thought people would see past partisan lines and decide that someone who has stolen and taken advantage of an old man in need, then lied about it, someone who used to run with hooligans and use violence as a way to release tension (or whatever the reason is they come up with to justify their gang fights), would not be a good President, would not be a good person to represent their nation, I don’t know.

I mean, look at America. Look at Germany. Germany, of all places.

I used to read about Turkey and Hungary and shake my head and think “These countries… yes, but this would not be possible elsewhere, these are outliers, exceptions. The rest of Europe knows better…”

Shit, look at me knowing nothing…

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My daughter is 11 years old. She will be the age I am now in 2065. How will the world look like in 2065? Will there be birds? Will there be trees? Will there be life in the oceans? Will there still be seasons or will it just be one extreme weather event after another? Will the sky still be blue or will it have turned red?

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The day this letter goes out to you will be the 1195th day of war in Ukraine. Yes, that’s right. One thousand one hundred and ninety five days. Three years, three months and nine days. Of war.

The number of dead Palestinian children during the current iteration of this age-old conflict is a number that should never be in the same sentence as the words “children” and “dead”.

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And these are only the most prominent issues in the news. Barely the surface of all that damage, all the harm and all the cruelty humans are inflicting on each other, on all non-human beings and on this planet, the planet that gave us life, our home, on a daily basis.

Given the state of the world, my problems, pottery related or otherwise, my life, my actions, are minimal. Insignificant.

And yet, I don’t have a choice, really. I must continue to do what I do, and what I do is simply live my life. Take care of my family. Take care of my garden. Look out for my friends. Be careful not to take more than I need. Be generous. Be kind. Be grateful. Live. Keep my eyes open. Be sad when I feel sad but be sure to let joy in when it comes knocking.

Know that there are things which I cannot change but strive to not let those things change me.

On those for whom happiness
Is their sun, night will fall.
But those who hope for nothing
Are glad for whatever comes.

~~Fernando Pessoa (as Ricardo Reis), translation by Richard Zenith

So, what do I hope for?

The above excerpt is from a poem by Fernando Pessoa which I came to know thanks to

Fog Chaser

who included it in this post. After reading the translation he quoted, I checked the original and started a conversation about the first lines (not quoted here), which didn’t seem faithful to the original — I was wrong, as it turns out, but that is not why I am bringing it up here. Today, it’s the use of the word “hope” in the above lines that I take exception to; in the original, Pessoa uses “espera”, and I believe a better translation would have been “expect”.

Today, and every day, I don’t want the word “hope” associated with inaction or with having low expectations. I appreciate the translation but hope has no place in this poem.

I don’t think you can hope for nothing. You can expect nothing but you hope for something. I want to hope for a lot.

I hope for a world where the words “children” and “dead” do not appear in the same sentence. I hope for birds and butterflies, and whales and elephants, and moths and slugs in 2065. I hope for rain and sunshine, for Spring and Autumn. Above all, I hope I am strong enough to really understand that hope and action go together, and don’t let myself fall into a hole of despair and of… well, hopelessness. I hope that I will keep hoping that things will get better and that I am able to do my part.

I also hope that my kiln keeps working and that my pots turn out great.

And what am I going to do about it?

I won’t focus on what the world might look like in 2065 because I might miss on what it (still) looks like today.

I will go out to the garden and harvest salad leaves, radish and herbs, so that the our dinner’s food miles are as few as possible, and I won’t let the fact that we still need to buy the other ingredients not knowing where many of them come from take away the joy and goodness of eating those homegrown veggies. And keep planting.

I will share what I can with my neighbours. Even if it is only a greeting and a smile.

I will keep reading Rebeca Solnit’s Hope in the Dark,

Jason Anthony

’s Field Guide to the Anthropocene and

Julie Gabrielli

’s Homecoming, right here, on Substack.

I will send you these words so you may know that, even though I focus here on my work as a potter, I am not oblivious to what goes on outside my bubble.

I will also let some others’ words go, not read all the news, and, thanks to

Ann Collins

, make a few more morning altars like the one in the picture above.

And, as insignificant in the grand scheme of things as it is, I will also feel grateful that there is nothing wrong with my kiln, that only an electrical part failed. I will wait for the new controller to arrive, then do what I can to help Radek put it in place, and finally I will start the kiln again.

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This letter was prompted by this post by

Alford Wayman

. He writes:

Maybe the only real time we are allowed to hope is at the very end. When the work is finished and the pots are cooling in the kiln, we might stand before it and say, “I sure hope this turned out.” before lifting the lid. Not before. Not during. But only after we did everything within our power to make it happen.

Literally true for potters; a brilliant metaphor for everyone else.

And so, as always, thank you so much for reading. If you feel inspired to do so, please share in the comments any thoughts this post may have brought up for you — I would love to hear from you.

Next time, I intend to finally bring you the second instalment of making a mug. Until then, stay hopeful, take action where you can and, above all, get outside and smell as many flowers as you can.

Sara xx

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If you would like to see my work

My Etsy store just got a bit of a facelift and I invite you to take a look at the new mugs and trays. I am also on Instagram, though more and more I wish I weren’t.