Bold and Courageous

Courage means the ability to do something that frightens you. Tasks that require courage are different for everybody. Over the past few years, many people have made the comment " You are so courageous moving and traveling to new places where you do not know anyone." What I am about to share may surprise you. While it is a challenge to go to new places to live, work, make new friends, learn new policies, that is getting easier and easier. Like anything, the more you do it , the better or easier it becomes.

What takes more courage for me it to walk into a new situation where there is guaranteed human interaction.  I am an introvert at heart. I am completely content hiking for hours or days with only a few small talk conversations here and there if any human interaction at all. Don't get me wrong, I do like to have friends and community. There in lies the problem. In order to have community, one needs to interact with strangers. Although I do try to maintain relationships from the past, it is different from day to day interaction with people. It is the frequent conversations or simply being together living life that creates friendships. 

These past few weeks, I have been attempting to earn my courageous badge :) Last weekend, I went to a local bar/saloon which has free line dancing on Sunday evenings. I attended line dancing lessons while I was here in the winter. A classmate, who is much more advanced than me, told me about the Sunday night dancing. I thought she was going to attend last Sunday. I hummed and hawed and finally gained enough courage to go down there. I opened the door to a restaurant full of strangers many of whom were already line dancing. I quickly scanned the restaurant for my classmate. She was nowhere to be found. After waiting a few minutes, I returned to the car and was going to drive back home.

 As I was sitting in my car, I received a phone call from someone from church inviting me to a Memorial Day potluck the next day. While I had seen people from church, I did not know them more than their name from the meet and greet time. I accepted the invitation. This gave me enough courage to reenter the line dancing. The dances were not called which means you have to know them already. I attempted to follow a few but quickly became frustrated and sat down to people watch.

There were people of all ages. The children were fun to watch as they had no inhibitions and simply enjoyed to music and danced their own dances. There was a table of friends and family who were communicating through sign language. This actually proved helpful as the music was loud making it difficult to hear someone talk. What was fascinating to me was the difference between the adults signing and the children. The children had clear distinct signs while the adults had quicker, sloppy signs. Also the adults had well developed peripherial vision and spacial awareness knowing when the waitress was coming. The children, on the other hand, did not and had to be told or surprised by the waitress. I did enjoy dancing a few more dances prior to leaving. All in all, I am glad I went and stayed. 

The Palm Desert Art Museum is free on Friday. I figured I would take the courage and time to drive down there and see it and the meet a friend at the farmer's market afterwards in another city. Limited human interaction, but getting out of the house...or so I thought. Upon entering the museum, the docent was very talkative. After enjoying the museum, I drove down a street with many galleries. I stopped at one and went inside. It was one that featured Richard MacDonald, a bronze sculptor. His work was amazingly detailed. He sculpts ballet dancers and gymnasts in circus de solei while performing lifts, jumps, rings, and the like. The consultant was very friendly and we ended up chatting for about 30 minutes about the pieces and Mercy Ships. 

I then drove to the farmer's market where I was going to meet my friend. I arrived a little early and was sitting on a bench at the end of the farmer's market...I had met my courage quota of the day so I was going to wait for her before walking through the market. Not long after that thought, two young Mexican girls approached me and began speaking to me in English. The younger of the two, who was 4, spoke in broken English. I answered her in Spanish without thinking. The older girl, 7, responded in English with surprise "You speak Spanish!" We then continued talking in Spanish about little girl things of riding a bike, playing in the park, playing with the dog, going to school, etc. My friend arrived and off we went to enjoy the market. About an hour or so later, I walked by the bench where the girls were on my way to the car. They came running up and wanted to continue interacting.

At a friend's prompting, I organized a hike in Joshua Tree National Park Saturday morning with coworkers from both clinics. It was a great day followed by a relaxing lunch. The days of courage paid off, a museum, garden, sculptor, Mercy Ships, Spanish with little girls, farmer's Market, hiking in the park, eating at a new restaurant, talking about things other than physical therapy.  I take comfort in the scripture Joshua 1:6-9 especially verse 9 "Have I not commanded you? Be bold and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you whereever you go."  Even when I feel alone in new and challenging situations, I can trust I am not truly alone. God is there right beside me.