Mettle

Mettle:

it seems an old fashion word now, mettle, being another word for courage and pertaining to a persons ability to cope with difficulties, an inner resiliency displayed in trying times. I’m not sure why the word came to me this morning, appearing as a subject for me to write of — and yet it’s early morning, my pre-dawn writing time, coffee at hand, and I will write about mettle.

whenever I came across this world, usually in works of fiction, paperback westerns, and the hero would have their mettle tested against a great adversary, an opponent with deadly skills, or a landscape of daunting challenge. It’s an interesting word, and to me it seemed to be deeper than mere courage, that it was an inner quality revealed through adversity and not something that would disappear as trouble faded. For me — to have mettle meant that a person had an inherent quality of resilience, surfacing as needed, resting in the very fabric of their body until that specific time.

of course this was a romantic notion fueled by the stories that I had read as a boy.

but maybe not so wrong.

perhaps this resiliency does reside in the deep fabric of our being, cellular, that it’s more truly who we are, as if David in the marble, revealed by the situation that demands it, seen only as life carves us down to bare essence. I’ve had flashes of courage…