Long before morning I knew that what I was seeking to discover was a thing I’d always known. That all courage was a form of constancy.
― Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses 

Constancy is not a flashy virtue. Dressing modestly and speaking demurely, it lives quietly in a noisy world. Few champion its cause or sing its praises, and many consider it to be old-fashioned and just plain boring. On the dance floor where virtues such as courage, determination, and passion whirl wildly about, constancy stands at the edge, a wallflower with a glass of warm punch in her hand.

But I confess: I’m a big fan of the quiet virtues. A few weeks ago, I was at my granddaughter’s trackmeet. As a former sprinter, I still get unreasonably nervous when I watch running events. When Gracyn took the track to run the 3,000 meters, I realized that I was holding my breath. And then I realized that I’d better relax and breathe because she had 8 laps to run. At dusk, the wind picked up and whipped across the metal bleachers. On the track below, the high school girl runners looked particulalry vulnerable with their bare legs and thin jerseys. After the first 800 meters, I watched Gracyn on the back straight-away and thought: pick it up. But I was also painfully aware that I had no experience as a distance runner and no real idea about pacing a 3,000 meter run. Still, I could see the runner a few meters ahead of her and willed her to take her before the curve. With each lap, however, Gracyn’s pace remained the same. It was as if she were a metronome of will, ticking off lap after lap with constancy. Though she didn’t win, she did place.

Weekly columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan claims that [p]art of courage is simple consistency. Novelist Cormac McCarthy echoes the same sentiment when he writes Long before morning I knew that what I was seeking to discover was a thing I’d always known. That all courage was a form of constancy [All the Pretty Horses]. There is something courageous about taking the track alone and running 3,000 meters. And there’s something quietly remarkable about running a consistent pace you can sustain until the very end.

Oh, there are those like Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde who argue that consistency is the hallmark of the unimaginative. No doubt, Wilde wouldn’t have been impressed with Gracyn’s run that night. Nor would he be impressed with anyone who lives and performs with that sort of constancy. We often find comfort and joy, however, in the very constancy he claims is unimaginative. I always knew that my grandma would make me a chocolate pie for every family dinner. There would be other pies, of course, but there would always be chocolate pie. My grandma might have been more imaginative, branching out into coconut or banana cream. If she had, though, my disappointment would’ve been palpable.

Pie is one thing; love is quite another. My parents’ love for each other wasn’t flashy. My dad’s idea of a perfect first date was a dime cup of coffee and a cozy spot behind a haystack in a field where thousands of Sandhill cranes were feeding. My mom’s Christmas gift to him one year was a sweatshirt on which she had printed: Strictly for the Birds. Their love story wouldn’t have made great reality TV with its elaborate dates, grand gestures, and Oscar-worthy proposals. Their love story was not the sort that flashed but invariably fizzled after the filming is done, but rather one of quiet constancy through sickness and health, for richer and for poorer. This is the kind of constancy on which to stake your life.

Today, realtors will begin showing my family home at 611 West 27th in Kearney, Nebraska. For my parents and siblings, grandchildren, cousins, neighbors, friends, visiting poets and pigeon-racers, this home has been a reliable place to gather. My family home is an ordinary house whose walls my mother lovingly filled with family photos, my father’s poetry and awards, and artwork. The wall at the top of the stairs has been a family gallery with photos that range from the endearing to the humiliating (you know the kind: the official middle school photos with braces, questionable hair styles and attire). Still, in spite of our pleas that some of these photos might be removed, they remained. And there has been something quite wonderful about knowing that every time you climbed the stairs, you could expect to find the same photo gallery spread out before you: a constant reminder of you of who you are and to whom you belong.

In her novel, Her Name Was Rose, Claire Allan writes:

Watching the sea never ceased to ground me. It was unchangeable. It was constant. Whatever happened – whatever seasons came and went, whatever way the wind blew, whatever was going on in the world, whatever was going on in the lives of the people who walked along the shores – the waves always just did what they did best. They came and went.

I know that my family home is a house: a foundation, a set of walls, and a roof. And yet, even as I understand the necessity of selling it, I’m grieving the loss of it. Like the sea, it has been unchangeable and constant for me, a port in the storms of life, a place that has blessed so many simply because we’ve spent time there. I mourn the loss of such constancy, for it has sustained me in ways I’ve only begun to understand.

For many of us, things can’t move and change quickly enough. We entertain ourselves by scrolling quickly on our phones and computers, searching for the next image or video which amuses us–or at least moves us. In the background of all this, however, are those people, places, and things which remain quietly but firmly constant. I’ll set my heart to these.

My Granddaughter Runs the 3,000 meters

At dusk, the sun bruises the horizon 
with deep orchid, and the south wind whips 
across the metal bleachers.

On the track below, she is ticking off meters, 
each lap the same as the last.

As former sprinter turned spectator,
I stuff my gloved hands in my pockets, turn up my collar 
and think: pick it up, pick it up, pick it up.

But she is ticking off curves and straight-aways
with bare legs that are pistons of resolve.

She is a metronome of will:
pounding out strides in iambic regularity,
her face cloudless and open.

On the far straight,
she drops her head into the wind
as the bell signals the last lap.
And I think: she will start her kick now.

But her pace—furiously constant—holds. 

As she takes the last curve, I can read her, 
measure after steadfast measure.

And I think: I will set my heart to this.

--Shannon Vesely