Every night before my wife and I put our son to bed we give him a bath and then I read to him. On the night I found out I was losing my job we happened to be reading Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein.

I opened the book of poems to “It’s Dark in Here”:

I am writing these poems
From inside a lion...

Soon-to-be-unemployed, a new father, global pandemic… It sure was dark in here, reading that poem from inside a lion.

But then I turned the page to find “Ourchestra”:

So you haven’t got a drum, just beat your belly.
So I haven’t got a horn—I’ll play my nose.
So we haven’t any cymbals—
We’ll just slap our hands together,
And though there may be orchestras
That sound a little better
With their fancy shiny instruments
That cost an awful lot—
Hey, we’re making music twice as good
By playing what we’ve got!

Some days later a fan of my work asked me if I was hopeful for the future.

I gave his question a lot of thought.

What I decided is that I have no choice but to be hopeful. If you’re not hopeful, then you have to create your own hope. By playing what you’ve got!