It was a pretty hard week to be a fan. Out of our favorite 11, playing a total of 7 matches we saw a combined two goals scored and only one victory recorded.

Even my birthday on January 25th was tempered by discouraging results. The maximum MacKenzie team, Ross County, got burned by Celtic on Burns Day. Moreover, Alex and I ventured out to try to watch the Staggies only to be stymied by the fickle fiends of streaming services.

Not all was lost though. We did get to play some coaster soccer in the back of a bar. (Please send Father of the Year trophies to me directly) Then Alex discovered a new kind of soccer, where you throw the ball into one of six holes. We adults might give this game a different name, like, say, pool. But for Alex this too was soccer and he was invested.

Alex’s insistence on trying and trying again is not unlike the fans who still show up week after dispiriting week. Or the player mid-slump who puts in the time and effort knowing it can be done and wanting to do it.

Put simply: we want to do hard things because they are hard to do.

Improve public schools: hard. Learn to walk: hard. Get the ball in the hole/goal: damned hard. We do it, to paraphrase a former president, “not because it is easy, but because it is hard.”

Alex, you already get that. You already try and try and try again because it’s going to happen, and you want to do it yourself. Would that I could take credit for teaching you that, but that just seems to be you, and that is beautiful.

In honor of Burns Night and the boys from Dingwall who now must face that other Glaswegian Giant (Rangers). I’ll let Rabbie himself have the final word on loving what is hardest:

The wintry wast extends his blast,

And hail and rain does blaw;

Or the stormy north sends driving forth

The driving sleet and snaw:

While, tumbling brown, the burn comes down,

And roses from bank to brae:

And pass the heartless day.

The sweeping blast, the sky o’ercast,

The joyless winter-day,

Let others fear, to me, more dear,

Than all the pride of May:

–Robbie Burns: “Winter”