true grit

This afternoon I saw the new version of the movie, "True Grit" with Jeff Bridges.  Aside from being much more realistic than the 1968 John Wayne version, the essence and tone of this movie struck a chord with me, hitting on an element that I suspect resounds strongly with many Americans:  the spirit of tenacity.  Thinking back on the movie throughout the course of the evening has brought a number of images and scenes (and thoughts) to mind.  Maddie, the young girl in the movie, whose core desire is to avenge the death of her father, is nothing short of absolutely hard as nails.  Nothing seems to phase her.  SPOILER:  Even when she gets bit by a rattlesnake towards the end of the movie, for being a 14-yr-old girl, she seems to take it in beautiful stride.  I think what really sealed the deal for me was seeing her in the end, as a grown woman with only one functional arm, still hard as nails, though a little more mellowed.  This is not the same Maddie that I grew up with in the John Wayne version of True Grit.  In the 1968 version, John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn defined what "true grit" really meant.  Today, Maddie's character is the one who defines "true grit."

And I have to say that as a young woman, it's completely empowering.  I see a lot of myself in her.  Maybe not in the cross-a-river on a horse or shoot-a-man-in-his-side kind of way, but that spirit of tenacity... yeah, I grew up with that.  A gift from my dad, a man with similarities to the old Marshall himself.  And I don't care who you are, but if you spend your childhood growing up in a rural area, you gain a certain amount of true grit whether you want it or not.  Thinking back on my childhood, of course I had dreams of being a princess and the first female president of the United States.  But they were tempered by other dreams of make-believe... when I think back to the games of pretend that I used to play with the other neighbor kids, they weren't spent make-believing I was a princess or a damsel in distress.  They were spent pretending to be a cowgirl.  Or a horsegirl.  Or a horse even.  Don't ask me how or why... we didn't own horses.  But we knew people that did and somehow we caught the spirit of freedom and independence that comes with those images of rural life, open ranges, gravel roads, horses, and girls like Maddie who are hard as nails.  I caught that spirit.

We moved off our small three-acre property located down two miles of gravel road five miles outside of town when I was a senior in high school.  I remember being devastated, hating to leave what felt like my connection to nature and the "wild frontier."  I was angry with my father for months.  And these days I no longer just live in "town" but a real city, as a grown-up no longer playing pretend.  I have found that there are some things these "city folk" have never heard of (like putting sand in the back of your vehicle when cold weather hits) and some things they simply will never understand (like filling gallon jugs with water if the forecast calls for an ice storm).  In many ways, I'm an anomaly of acculturation.  But despite my classy education in the fields of music research, performance, and teaching, that raw spirit of cowgirl tenacity remains... I would never make it as a self-employed pianist in the wild without it.  In some ways, I suppose I still play pretend... or maybe these days it's called willpower (?).  The boundary lines between the two are easily skewed in my mind.

Tonight as I reflect back on all this and the role that "true grit" has played in my life (and is still playing in my life), I like to think that I have the tenacity to look 2011 square in the eyes, cock my head, and give him a long, hard look...  "What business do you have with me, sir?"