Courage

I love this picture because of Rubin's exposed tongue and my apparently missing teeth. I guess that's what happens when you turn 49 years old.

Today was a great day, though. We went to Peggy's farm and played with the horses. Rubin didn't play much, but Jeanne and Lisa's daughters played big time. They are two and four years old and were the pure definition of COURAGE.

When I was a kid, my family would watch "The Wizard of Oz" every year on our little black and white TV. You sort of lost the switch from Kansas to Munchkin land, though the quality of the picture changed right when Dorothy opened the door, but still, I remember that movie like I'd written it myself. Later, when we had a color TV, I'd hide in the kitchen when the Wicked Witch was on the old house with a ball of fire on her broom ready to hurl it at the scarecrow. Something about the green skin wigged me out, but once she was gone, I was skipping down the yellow brick road as they fetched up the Cowardly Lion.

I loved all the characters, but he was my favorite. I imitated him all the time -- What happens if you run into a Prontasaurus? I'd show him who's king of the forest! -- and I practiced under my covers after I watched the movie saying "Courage" with just the right amount of spittle in my throat.

Courage dribbles out of us, I think, as we get older. Okay, maybe not everyone, but I often feel like it's dribbled out of me. This is an interesting time. I'm finishing out my last year of teaching, getting ready to leap into something completely new and different, and all I could do today on my 49th birthday is cry as I listened to the four-year old say, upon watching Peggy demonstrate how to work with the horse, "I can do that!" And then she marched right into that arena and lead that horse around like she was 150 pounds and not 40 pounds.

And if that wasn't amazing enough, her two-year old sister got up on top of that 1,100 pound beast and pointed the direction she wanted to go every time Peggy said, "Where should we go?"

Courage, I've read, is not the lack of fear. It's supposedly knowing the fear and doing the thing anyway. I buy that on some level, but on another level there's something to be said for being purely courageous (doing the thing without the hint of fear). The girls were like that today. They hadn't a clue what there was to be afraid of though somehow they must have sensed it as they reached up above their heads and groomed the horse's belly. How could they not know that the animal next to them could squash them flat with just the wrong move?

But the horse was gentle and patient and the girls sensed that more than they sensed anything we adults define as fear.

I liked watching their courage today. I liked watching them move confidently forward, trusting Peggy and the horses without all those tapes playing in their heads -- "You can't do this...what the hell are you thinking? You're going to fail. What if I do something wrong? I could get hurt!" They were inspirational today and the perfect birthday present. Courage is about moving forward, with a smile on your face and a swagger in your walk that says, "It doesn't get any better than this!"

It doesn't. It really, really doesn't.