The Bean Trees

by Barbara Kingsolver

“It seems like, if you get to know them well enough, everybody has had something awful happen to them.

I don’t believe Cynthia was much older than I was, but you put somebody in high-heeled pumps and sit her behind a big desk and age is no longer an issue—she is more important than you are, period.

I would say that I’m a hopeful person, although not necessarily optimistic. Here’s how I would describe it. The pessimist would say, “It’s going to be a terrible winter; we’re all going to die.” The optimist would say, “Oh, it’ll be all right; I don’t think it’ll be that bad.” The hopeful person would say, “Maybe someone will still be alive in February, so I’m going to put some potatoes in the root cellar just in case.” And that’s where I lodge myself on this spectrum. Hope is a mode of survival. I think hope is a mode of resistance. Hope is how parents get through the most difficult parts of their kids’ teenaged years. Hope is how a cancer patient endures painful treatments. Hope is how people on a picket line keep showing up. If you look at hope that way, it’s not a state of mind but something we actually do with our hearts and our hands, to navigate ourselves through the difficult passages.