What Does Your Courage Look Like?

My friend and colleague, Mary Anne Em Radmacher, often reminds me to focus on “my nine.” My Nine are the 8 people who will be there to carry my coffin and the 9th to count cadence. She is one of my nine. We met because when asked by a woman hosting her in Asheville what she would like to do while there, she said she would like to meet me.

I was shocked. I had seen and hung up in my house greeting cards and art by Em for years. YEARS. Since before college. Her host arranged a dinner party at her house and invited me. Em brought art projects for us to do. We laughed and ate and have been close friends since. She is a true mensch, an artist and writer with a big heart and bigger brain.

She has a particular kinship to Feliks and has become one of a very few “aunties” to him over the years. She sends him things that align with his interests. She lies on the floor and makes art with him. She types letters to him on an old typewriter and then sends the letter WITH the typewriter for him to explore. She is a magical fairy in his and all our lives. She is a wise sprite, fast to dance on her toes, always able to ascertain a humane and compassionate way forward.

One of her most famous poems is about courage (above). And now, as of this past Tuesday, she has written a book whose title reflects her belief that courage doesn’t always roar (and sometimes it does).

You need this book to inspire and inform and motivate you in crap times and in good times. Available from Amazon or your favorite bookseller. It—like her 13 other books—will lift you up, make you think, and get you moving on things that really matter. Like paying attention to your nine.