“There’s room for both of us.” This is what I’m telling Rocky as he tries to find space on my lap as I type. He was sitting in the chaise on the deck, nestled into the Mexican blanket I brought back from Cancun the first time I discovered the Mayan oasis. Now he is curled into the inner nook of my left elbow, his cerulean eyes quizzically looking in my direction.
Dusk, the sky is a faded velvet. It is so quiet up here and the breeze is heavenly, dancing around the copper chimes, brushing up against the clematis on the stairs. The rain is settling into a mist and there is a definitive feel of fall in the air. Something is rising, and not just in the atmosphere; it’s a changeling for all the things I feel internally. Change is brewing, I’ve felt the subtlety of what the newness could mean if I could just step forward. My current vocation is the last thread, the last anchor that ties me to the world where Dad was present. So many changes in two years time, it doesn’t seem very long at all, and yet f feels like a lifetime ago. The swirl of emotions from grieving is growing, surreptitiously deciding my future and all of it makes me feel like I have to be braver. Moreso than ever before.
Bravery is the act of being courageous; having courage, valor, intrepidity, nerve. True, there are more important things to fret about given what is happening in the world today but most of it beyond opinion is out of my control (racial inequality, gun control, and Iran’s nuclear powers). My greatest concern a call for bravery is a first world problem, and it’s not necessarily bravery that I am after but that last word on the end: “nerve.” That’s the one that resonates and calls to mind one of my favorite literary (and movie) characters from The Wizard of Oz–the cowardly lion.
On their journey to Oz he is determined to acquire courage from the great wizard and upon arrival is surprised to find out he has been practicing the act of courage all along. “The true courage is in facing danger when you are afraid.” (Frank L. Baum)
Life’s greatest mysteries they are often resolved in the everyday act of living.
Image Source: Figment Studio/Etsy
modern vintage ink 