One of my favorite professors used to say when she didn’t like something, “That’s phony baloney. Do it again.” She was not a law professor, but that’s neither here nor there. We would do it again. And again. And again. Until we got it right. Then she would nod, give a slight snort, and call the next group, as if our painful success was already gone from her mind: as if we were already gone from her mind. As if we didn’t matter. And I adored her.

Now she is gone and I still adore her.  I never understood until this moment what she gave me and why I valued it so highly. I would not have loved her all these years if all I remembered was the brush-off when it was over. What I really remember is the doing it over, and over, and over. Until we got it right. And we got it right. That was everything and I still adore her and I still miss it.

There are not so many people in life who will stay with you until you get it right. Perhaps there are even fewer who understand what right really is. I think right is, in many cases, a moving target, not that it matters. It’s what you think.

The real thing she taught me, my white-haired Russian friend, and what I’m saying now, is that if you want it you have to keep doing it over and over and over and over. Until you get it right. Even if you have to do it alone. You can’t give up, because you may not get to come back.

So bad as this all is, keep on doing it again and again and again. No giving up. No despair. The next time may be for real. No phony baloney.