I have these lyrics on my desktop right now:

I can sense it
Something important
Is about to happen
It’s coming up.

It takes courage to enjoy it
The hardcore and the gentle
Big time sensuality
Sensuality

Lately I’ve been posting videos instead of photos. Here’s one more video as I’m way behind on my photo taking and editing…

The lyrics and video are from Bjork’s first solo album, Debut, the song “Big Time Sensuality.”

Over the past few days, I’ve used “It takes courage to enjoy it, the hardcore and the gentle” as a mantra. Humming it as I drove around town, hearing it in my head at work, keeping the words in mind in yoga.

I guess you could say I’ve been meditating on the word “courage.” In many ways I think that for a long time “courage” for me, was nothing but a simulacrum. It became distorted and disjointed from its original meaning. How for so long I thought I was brave and strong, when instead it was nothing but a well-crafted facade cobbled from bits of my past.

Somehow I’ve gone from Woody Allen to Diane Keaton, still charmingly neurotic yet less annoying. I listened to this song by Bjork over and over and felt that resonation where even though you wished you could apologize to everyone who has seen your not-too-hot sides and reintroduce yourself and hope for better endings, you’re okay, really okay, just where you are.

Writing this book, and then talking about it has meant putting something tangible into the world, instead of just into the ether or as part of a group effort. It meant staring down old playground fears and worries that kept me awake all the while thinking that I was being courageous. It meant okaying and forgiving so many negative and damaging years, and finally putting them to rest so I could focus on the recent good ones.

It meant realizing that without all the years so close to self-destruct or implosion, I wouldn’t be able to fully appreciate and adore what was on the other side of the coin. Maybe it was all down to that “fake it til you make it” mantra that puts a shine and a smile to everything.

As the simulacrum crumbled and I was left out in the open, I wondered why, honestly, we tend to see feeling fear as a failure or weakness. Isn’t a part of courage feeling fear and pushing through it? If passing through fear leads to courage then we are all both cowards and heroes, as you need to feel the fear of a coward in order to be brave and your actions noble. It, too, is the other side of a double-edged coin. No one ever says that courage is needed both in loss and in victory, that even though the outcomes are opposite, bravery was there the minute you stepped in the fray.

It takes courage to enjoy “the hardcore and the gentle,” both the rough and the smooth. Courage to feel, courage to fight, courage to love, courage to give without expecting reciprocity. So here, at the tail end of 2008 and the fresh start of 2009, I wish you courage.

May you have the courage to enjoy.

Also, the amazingly inspiring Nancy McNally (who makes the most wonderfully beautiful peace cranes) passed along an article about a new campaign to get artists in schools and in our communities. You can read more about it here and vote for the idea over at Change.org over here. Thanks for spreading the word, Nancy!