Love Won’t Go: Lessons in Resilience
By Therese Walsh | November 12, 2024 |
My mother has one of the so-called “superpower genes,” which boosted her capacity for resilience beginning in childhood. She likely needed it; her father fought against authoritarianism during WWII, earning a Purple Heart on Germany’s border.
I literally don’t have this gene. When confronted by threat, my impulse is to withdraw into a quiet, private space, away from others and even my art. It’s something I have to actively resist, which means I need to build resilience within myself, complementing my “nature” with some self-“nurture.”
But how?
Reach for an Anthem
It’s usually our friend Vaughn Roycroft who reaches for song lyrics, I know, but today I’m thinking of a song that’s long been a favorite of mine, “Love Don’t Go” by The Family Crest. There’s something about it that has always struck me as triumphant despite lyrics that can ride in the other direction. I’m writing with some new thoughts on that today as this earworm settles in with my permission and gratitude. (I’ve embedded the song at the bottom of this post, if you’d like to hear it first.)
So you lost your head inside your heart
And the weighty world it tore you apart
And you’ve all but given up
On the stone you call a heart, you’re singing out
If you’ve ever poured yourself into something you believed in, only to watch it falter, you’ll feel the truth in these lyrics about the weighty world’s effect on your spirit. When you care deeply about something and invest yourself in a cause that fails, it can feel like heartbreak. But in these moments of loss, there is also an invitation.
Sing it out
Creativity often finds its power when artists are driven to “sing it out”—to express pain, loss, or unfulfilled dreams through their craft. To use their struggles to add authenticity and depth to their work rather than retreat. Across generations, storytellers of all walks have transformed setbacks into fuel, finding purpose in the act of creating, despite life’s challenges.
Despite.
And because of.
My unquiet mind, even in the midst of [gestures to everything] nudged at me to use it. To see that the lens of my story, already large, could be larger yet. And what would that look like? An idea flooded in about the deeper roots in a dysfunctional system in my story, and I scrambled for a pen.
Oh, the love you’ve placed inside my hands
Oh, the fervor that your heart demands
Well we went off with a spark
But you were left out in the dark, singing out
Oh, sing it out
The gift of hard times for an artist is its nudge to recast what we thought we knew about the world and its people in order to bring a greater texture, power, and insight to our art. And the beauty of art, in part, lies in its ability to transform what’s heavy in our hearts into something even more authentic, which in turn can make it more relatable and even bridge divides.
Oh, love, you wanna step outside
Find a place to run and hide
It isn’t that it’s tough
It’s just that I don’t love you enough
Clouds will cast a shadow—it’s simply physics. Likewise, dark times can make us question the value of what we do.
But for storytellers, resilience means continuing to write, create, and dream, even in the face of setbacks, even if no one but you champions your cause. It means trusting that our work has value, even in a world that feels chaotic and unjust and cruel.
So take your shaking bones
And step out on your own
The winter never stops
It takes courage to continue when the path is uncertain, but shaky steps forward are still steps forward. And uncertainty can bring its own gifts, as we learn to value our art for what it gives to us and for the deeper truths it allows us to express, and as we learn to appreciate the strength we’re able to summon from deep within ourselves.
And life, it goes in cycles with seasons of sun and snow. It’s this very thing that can help to keep us in balance—though it may be hard to appreciate in the middle of a cataclysmic blizzard.
It requires our ability to adapt. To know where center is. To know where the fire burns.
And there’s nothing left inside my heart
No there’s nothing left for you
Oh, there’s nothing left inside my broken heart
At the heart of every artist’s journey is a singular drive to create. And even if it doesn’t feel like it’s there right now—that there’s nothing left inside your broken heart—please trust that it is.
It’s there in a need to understand.
To make meaning.
To make change.
To try again.
And again.
And again, despite everything.
Because this is what we were built for. This is what we writers do. This is the job, this is it. And no one ever said it would be easy. It isn’t. Life is messy and ugly and horrible and — god — it can be so incandescently beautiful, too, even when it breaks our hearts.
You say yes, and I say no
Love don’t stop, oh love don’t go
Love don’t go
You may face moments of inner conflict, uncertain what to do or if you can endure or what you’re capable of. Because the world will force us to recalibrate. It will force us to blink. But we must do so with our faces tipped toward the sun, even if that sun is shrouded in darkness, even if the winter feels long and hard.
Do not quit on yourself. Rather, let your creative journey be one of resilience. Hold to your ideals, the truths that trumpet through your heart, that drumbeat you feel pulsing through your veins. Fight for your voice, your values, and your vision. Keep creating, keep singing, keep holding to what matters to you.
Please do not quit on your fellow writers, either, as we need one another more than ever. And please know this will always be a safe place. You have my word on that.
Write on, friends.
You can learn more about the truly brilliant The Family Crest on their website.
How do you practice resilience in difficult times? And what’s on your playlist?
Therese Walsh (she/her) co-founded Writer Unboxed in 2006 and is the site’s editorial director. She was the editor of WU’s only book, Author in Progress, and runs the Writer Unboxed UnConference.
Her second novel, The Moon Sisters, received starred reviews and was named one of the best books of the year by Library Journal and Book Riot.
Learn more about Therese on her website, and sign up for her newsletter to be among the first to hear about any new projects.
Thank you for introducing me to new music! I am fascinated by the entire ensemble, and will pass this along to my cousin, a trombonist, in case he hasn’t seen it. Now this resilience thing. Experience is a part of it. I grew up on the Gulf Coast with hurricanes, and didn’t even realize I was developing a philosophy until my daughter experienced her first big hurricane at the age of five. She stood on our debris strewn street, surrounded by downed trees—lit by sun where there had been shade—and asked, “How are we ever going to clean this up?” I’d been there. I said, “One limb at a time. You don’t have to pick up anything that’s too heavy. Start with the twigs.” Battery power had to be conserved. There was no playlist. But when a song came to mind, we sang it.
Thanks Teri. So many of us are seeking inspiration right now, and this was it for me today. Xoxo
Don’t stop, bringing us the “Don’t Go.”
Thank you, Therese. This is *exactly* what we needed, and more. Of course.
Who’s quitting? Not me. Not anyone here. Storytellers don’t do that. Stories have power. They live on while guns rust, dictators die, and concentration camps fall to ruin. Time is on the side of right and so are stories. The only defeat would be to stop writing them and no one here is doing that.
So yes, as you say write on. But you hardly need to say it or blow the trumpet. There’s a reason this is called Writer Unboxed. Even if the censors try, publishers are shuttered and the internet is shut off, there will still be stories.
There were stories before any of that and there will be stories long after we are gone. Perhaps some of those stories will even be ours.
No one is quitting. Not me. Not anyone here and we are not alone.
You lovely soul. Thanks for these beautiful, hopeful, centering words. I cling in times like this to the people who shine a light, and you are one of those. 🧡
Lovely post, Therese. Way back in December 2016 — ahem — my post here included this:
I realized I only have one small thing to offer that I think you, fellow Unboxers of the Great Hive Mind, might have any call to sit through.
It concerns one of my favorite quotes, from a play by Archibald MacLeish titled J.B., based on the Book of Job. (Forgive me if I’ve brought this up before; I seem to be repeating myself a lot these days.)
The lines I love come at the end of the play, when J.B. and his wife, Sarah, are struggling to understand how to interpret the devastation they’ve suffered—and how to go on living.
Sarah says to J.B.:
Blow on the coal of the heart.
The candles in churches are out.
The stars have gone out in the sky.
Blow on the coal of the heart
And we’ll see by and by.
Thanks again.
Thank you for the anthem and your beautiful words, Therese. Thank you all for your good strong hearts. And thank you for this space, which is safe and real, and true.
“Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Wise words, but for some of us, Therese, much easier said than done. Thank you for your heartfelt post.
“It takes courage to continue when the path is uncertain, but shaky steps forward are still steps forward.”
This. Thank you.
Hey T — Powerful stuff, and much needed. If you’re asking the lyrics guy about his current playlist, I’ve got an album to recommend. Rob Pecknold of Fleet Foxes hit a creative wall back in 2017 (hmm, interesting timing), and went off to a deserted shore to contemplate moving forward as an artist. The result is Crack Up, a seminal work for him and the band, delivered in one of his darkest moments. The final song is the title track, Crack Up. It’s a bit dark, but it culminates in a sort of triumphant way (much like Love Don’t Go).
Lyrics:
So the mind won’t lie
And the arm won’t set
And the bright red eye
Isn’t off you yet
So the words won’t come
And the hand won’t touch
And a midnight sun
Doesn’t look like much
As an iris contracts
Facing the day
(I can tell you’ve cracked
Like a china plate.)
[Verse 2]
When the world insists
That the false is so
With a philippic, as Cicero
“The tighter the fist
The looser the sand”
(If I don’t resist
Will I understand?…)
[Verse 3]
All things change
Dividing tides
Far as I can see
All fades through
But a light of you
As Ylajali
[Outro]
All I see–
Dividing tides–
Rising over me––
Here Am I! Here Am I… ”
It’s that final echoing cry of “Here am I,” paired with the album’s recurring theme of waves hitting the shore, that gets me. Standing on the shore is perhaps one of my life’s most cherished and versatile metaphors. Some of the happiest times of my life have occurred on beaches and shores. And yet, I can feel such an echoing loneliness there. Walking the beach every day is something I’ve long aspired to, and I’ve achieved it. Which reminds me how lucky I am.
The shore forces me reopen myself to truths that sometimes elude me. The vastness of the sky, the depths of the blue of Lake Michigan–the thunder of the waves and the serenity of the stillness of this massive body–they serve to remind me how relatively small it all is, this human existence. The sheer immensity of the beauty… It’s humbling and soothing at once. When everything else seems to chafe and singe, the shore cradles my spirit and heals me up to try again. Our voices matter, no matter how many or few heed our call.
Thanks for the warmth and the fuel, the friendship and the inspiration.
Vaughn, I knew I could count on you to bring up Fleet Foxes. I’ve actually found their music comforting during this troubled time. Write on!
Thanks for this, everyone. Resist. I can see how comical that is, but I have nothing else to say right now.
Thanks, Therese. This is a very needed post that will echo for a long time.
It is also a message that explains why I am still here, every day, reading, commenting. “But for storytellers, resilience means continuing to write, create, and dream, even in the face of setbacks, even if no one but you champions your cause.”
Therese, I’ve almost finished a lovely little epistolatory book by Alice von Hildebrand and came across a startling view. We are so fond of saying “love is blind” but she points out that love allows us to really see. It is hatred that blinds. So true. We become blind to the goodness in other people. It is a constant struggle to love as we ought but with practice and God’s help, we can. I have always loved your namesakes’ Little Way. I’ve never stopped writing, even though a book of mine has been censored, and in fact, this past month, have had a burst of creativity. My current playlist has all 150 psalms chanted in Latin–it is absolutely the answer for everything, whether praise, thanksgiving, or petitions to the Almighty. Pax et bonum!
What a beautiful gift, thank you, Therese! I’m so grateful today not only for this post, but for this community. I know we’ll keep each other fired up, grounded, and inspired.
Therese, we start again with the stone and nothing else in the soup pot. But the WU villagers will bring a few carrots, some leaks, onions, whatever they have (no beets, though, dammit) and there is warmth and nourishment for all, and perhaps renewal. Thanks for setting the pot on simmer.
Duh, did I say “leaks”? No, with the right leeks, the pot won’t leak.
Thank you! My anthem is part of a song:
“I’ve had to work much harder than this,
For something I want, don’t try to resist me.”
Open Your Heart — Madonna
I like poet Lucille Clifton’s take on resilience: “Come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed.”
Likewise, from writer Lucy Zhang: “I like the image of damaged, warped trees. It’s like they’re saying, ‘Look what my will to live has done to me.'”
Thanks for this post. It’s so timely. During troubling times, I find comfort in music, nature, reading fiction, and writing. I’m struggling with the election result and I’m deeply worried about the future. There’s so much at stake. It’s not a time to withdraw. It’s a time for creative people to seek community, agency, and expression. We have voices and we need to make them heard. We need to create, whether it’s music, art, or literature. We need to stay engaged in the political process and fight for the values on which our country was founded. And we do need resilience, not just now, but all the time as we navigate uncertain times. Thanks again and I appereciate the introduction to a cool band. Write on!
Any reasonable person would have give up writing what I’m writing many years ago; by the time I finish the Pride’s Children mainstream trilogy, I estimate I will have poured all my available brainpower and energy of about 30 years into one story.
God willin’ and the crick don’t rise, I’ll finish the final volume, LIMBO, in another four or five years – and be done at least with the writing and publishing.
It has kept me sane while the world ignores humans with post-viral illnesses (now including long covid) as not worthy of time or money or research or attention or even much compassion. It’s my protest march, my grab for the brass ring, the ‘thing’ I did with what I have left.
‘Twill serve.
Quitting doesn’t seem to be possible.
You are an inspiration and a light, Therese. Shine on and write on. x
Thank you for this honest and inspirational post, Therese. It’s hard to find the authentic writer’s voice in times like these, but we still have it, deeep down. It’s our strength and mainstay.
Thank you, Therese, for this positive post and a song to hold onto.
I’ve been thinking–not for the first time–about the power of stories, the ones we hear, the ones we believe, the ones we tell ourselves. By “hear,” of course I also mean read.
All the more reason for us to recommit to the stories we are writing, the truths we’re exploring, and the empathy we are deepening.
Thank you, everyone, for your comments! I ended up in the ER with a family member yesterday — a very resilient one, who is now back home and doing well — and wasn’t able to circle back to reply. But I appreciate so many of these responses — and you! — very, very much.
Write on, friends.
I’m so sorry to hear about your family emergency. Glad to know all is well now.
I just had to thank you for your post that was both a powerful rallying cry and a warm, protective hug. Exactly what I needed, what we all need right now.
Thank you
Thank YOU, too, Lisa. I appreciate you and your note.
For anyone who pops in and would like to read even more in the spirit of what I wrote here, there was a piece that published in the Atlantic 11/13 that I wanted to share. This should be clickable even if you don’t have a subscription: DON’T TURN INWARD by Julie Beck.