hello from endless courage
[replenishing the reservoir]
Every day I run or walk past this sign and every day I want to press my hands against those letters and say thank you, thank you to whoever wrote it. Every day I say, to the Somerville powers that be, please do not paint over this sign. We need it, every inch of it, down to the little red heart hanging off the edge of the “E.”
It’s that someone thought to write this wide enough to turn heads. It’s that the way I feel towards the phrase changes each day. It’s that, monitoring those changes, I realize more fully how brave and fiery I feel that week, or endlessly tired and scared.
Amidst all this turmoil in seemingly every area of life, amidst the rage and joy and ebbs and flows of the week… I see the sign again!!
It’s hard to tell from this photo, but the beam on the left is rotting, without a base, almost floating in the air— propped up by a recent wooden intervention and anchored by that metal brace. This photo is the most accurate update I have. I want to believe in that metal suture. What holds us up amidst the rot? Why is the fact that someone thought to label it, so meaningful? (I think to myself now, isn’t that the work of poetry?)
Endless courage looks different for each one of us. Some days, courage does NOT feel endless. It feels finite. Some days, just speaking the truth or doing the laundry empties the Courage Reservoir.
What makes courage endless, and by that I mean, able to be exhausted and then replenished?
For me, it’s poetry. It’s Walden Pond cracking open in the new spring warmth. It’s the people I love, their voices crackling across the distance. It’s this poem:
and this one:
It’s trumpet meditations and Hermanos Gutierrez.
It’s the first feeling of spring.
It’s doing “the thing,” whatever it is, scared shitless—doing it anyway.
More soon, but for now, wishing you the bravery to do what exhausts your courage— then wishing you (all and everything) that replenishes it.
With the force of a thousand suns unfurling,
Raisa