S is for Staying the Course

December 8, 2025

“Things take the time they take. Don't worry.”

~Mary Oliver

A former student reminded me tonight that I used to tell her, “It takes as long as it takes.” I think I was unintentionally semi-plagiarizing Mary Oliver. Nevertheless, the sentiment has been helpful to me in the past and is increasingly coming to mind in the present.

Back up a few years. December 8, 2012. Larry and I had our first “date” (that sounds so weird at our age!). We had met through an online dating site a month or so earlier. Both of us were traveling a lot for work and family in the following weeks, but we began an email conversation that made our first afternoon together easy and wonderful. Larry had been the brave one via email, asking questions about religion and politics before we even met face-to-face. We had in common that these two facets of life were extremely important to us. We passed.

We met at a restaurant in Shadyside, Up, that is no longer there (surprise, surprise). Arrived around noon. Talked about families (both of us came from big ones) and work (important at the time to both of us) and dreams for the future. He listened, really listened. And he shared. He made me laugh and we definitely had chemistry. About 4 pm, as the servers began to sweep the floors and prep tables for dinner, we realized we needed to move on. I went from there to do a little Christmas shopping at Ross Park Mall, and promptly lost my car - I was in such a fog of happiness. I wandered around and around for at least 30 minutes (yes, I have the beeper thing on my key fob but I wasn’t even in the correct lot! So it didn’t work).

We have been together since then. 13 years today.

Why am I sharing this? The week before we first connected, I told my friends, “I am done.” I had met many lovely and not-so-lovely people but none worked. A wise friend said to me, “It just takes meeting the one person. Just one. If you stop, you will never know what could have happened, what you might have missed out on.” (I will also note that several good friends did not want me to stop the search because they felt great schadenfreude from my Monday morning stories of meetings gone awry.)

Staying the course. Staying the course led me to Larry.

It takes the time it takes.

Some days, weeks, seem endless. Trying to stay on top of the news is like trying to get a drink from a fire hose. Feelings of despair, anger, confusion, helplessness course through me, but, thankfully, fleetingly. Larry and I are very fortunate that we have, at this stage of life, the time and material resources to share and to contribute to the well-being of other individuals and the larger community. So I try to focus on that.

And I keep trying to learn what I can from history - from collapses, from resurgence after terrible trials. I just came across a book written by a professor from my alma mater, Transylvania - he also graduated from there several years after I graduated - Chris Begley. He is an archaeologist, and writes about the “next apocalypse,” sharing what he has learned from his studies of the “collapses” of the Roman Empire, the Mayan civilization, and Indigenous peoples in Kentucky. Other societies, other cultures have been faced with horrible situations.

Maybe the jury is out about what is going to happen with our own democracy? Will our vast communication networks, faulty as they are, help us stay aware enough to gather together and to keep pushing back against cruelty, lawlessness, and autocracy, preventing a complete collapse? Earlier civilizations did not have this advantage of instant communication. The reality is that we just can’t foresee the future in detail - so much uncertainty. What do you think?

So much. The wars, in so many places involving such cruelty, are so disturbing. Tonight I came across something written by Mark Twain more than a century ago - sounded uncomfortably familiar, but also felt a little reassuring - we have been in similar situations before and have somewhat prevailed (but with more work needing to be done). Anyway, a long read from Mark Twain…

“There has never been a just [war], never an honorable one--on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful--as usual--will shout for the war. The pulpit will--warily and cautiously--object--at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, 'It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it.' Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers--as earlier--but do not dare say so. And now the whole nation--pulpit and all--will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.”

Possible collapses. Signs of an apocalypse. Wars, hunger, poverty. Environmental destruction. Threats to democracy and rule of law. People giving in, bending the knee. We are in a mess indeed. But I don’t believe our ranks of resistance will thin out and give up, as Twain describes. I do believe we can prevail. It is us, we ordinary people, who will make - are making - the difference.

We will never know what is possible if we give up now - what a wonderful world we can create together.

So. Stay the course.

Stay the course.

We are not yet done.

Things take the time they take.

One more thought. I hope we don’t just return to the same old same old, if we do prevail. I hope we move forward into something even better. I hope this darkness has awakened in us greater awareness of what we really want our society to be, how we want to treat each other and to be with one another.

Let us hold out for what we are looking for - kindness, goodness, laughter and joy, tenderness, and justice.

April 13, 2023 - Our Wedding