“Had we but world enough and time, this coyness, lady, were no crime.”

Thus grumbled the Elizabethan poet, Andrew Marvell, exasperated at being unable to steer the object of his ardors toward some intended romp in the boudoir. My mind returns most often to the first line of that poem. True to the pattern of winters in a harsh northern clime, when thoughts congeal on gloomy or wistful topics, thoughts fixate on the passage of time. One frigid, cheerless day follows hard upon another and merely getting to the bird feeders over sheets of ice and mountains of snow requires a conscious act of heroism. Fleetingly, I wonder if I dare strap on a pair of silver skates and, Hans Brinker-like, glide gracefully down the long frozen expanse that is our driveway to collect the mail. (Better not, silly.) At the end of a long string of weather-constricted days spent staring at the same walls and familiar people who suddenly look threadbare and baleful, if fleeing to a warm place is not an option it is tempting to give up. "Out of time," you say wearily, "and glad of it."

When I was a child the world seemed so vast, and my life, I assumed, stretched out before me endlessly like a smooth and wondrous highway to adventure. Of course, in my mind's eye I would remain forever young, sauntering along without a care, rubbernecking at hitherto unknown ravishing sights. I was sure to relish every minute of the journey. Needless to say, the truth has been starkly different. Far messier and more interesting, really, with lots of bashings and clashings and regrets and many complex turnings in the road. Now I understand dark things that would have been incomprehensible at twenty─ such as why some poets drink themselves to death by age forty. And I conceded long since that only the absurdly-out-of-touch could hope to remain forever young. I even vowed to begin to acting my age, if only I could decide whether to count emotional age, or chronological age, or average the two. Having said this, it is still hard to accept the idea of running out of world enough and time.

I often speak about depletion on a number of levels, from the personal to the cosmic. The cosmic is beyond my ability to affect much, alas, but I can and do wrestle often with how to live responsibly and imaginatively within this diminishing world and how best to use the remainder of my time on earth. I can't predict how long that might be, of course, and questions invariably arise about “enough”. Now, what can that possibly mean in real terms? Enough─ "sufficient to satisfy appetite or desire," as the dictionary defines it. A small voice natters away in my brain...

How much love is enough, for instance? Enough love so that one may be self-confident and cherished but not so much as to smother or render arrogant. Food? Enough of the right food to be nourished, but not so much as to be fatten up and killed off by too much of a good thing. Enough winter so as to appreciate the quietude and cherish milder seasons of the year, but not so much winter as to extinguish the spirit. Enough help and support so that all are free of want in our society, but not so much as to make anybody unnecessarily dependent. Enough unanswered questions and mystery to keep you searching and guessing, but not so much as to drive you crazy. Enough unreached goals that you arise eager for another untrammeled day, but not so many tasks that you are overwhelmed.

One reward of a long life full of striving, I conclude, is to accept that many things you initiate will benefit, or be brought to fruition by, someone else only after you’re cruising with the angels. For example, face it, that sapling maple you planted to shade the west side of the house will not be of any consequence for twenty-five years. Season by season we watch it inch upward and encourage it to reach for the sky, and that is supposed to be enough. Everyone who has ever trod the earth has faced this frustration of wanting to know the end of every story. "Let me live long enough to (fill in the blank)," we beg, hatching grandiose schemes that require Methuselah’s lifespan to accomplish. A ridiculous habit of the species, but sweet.

In a touching way, theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote of the general dilemma of which I speak: “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be save by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore, we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness."