Guts > Brains?

“That is a gutsy young woman.”

This observation was repeated to me this morning, and for a moment I wanted to ask who it was referring to.  The context of the conversation indicated that I was the young woman being described, but that didn’t quite make sense.  Me?  Gutsy?  Not the word I would have used.

I was talking to my friend Mary, who has adopted me into her family over the past year.  She brought me into her church family, too, where I have recently begun to play the piano for worship.  I accepted the job with much trepidation, for I don’t consider myself much of a pianist—it’s been five years at least since I had a piano lesson, and my practicing since then has been sporadic at best.  There was no one else, though, and so I took on the work.  And every week I have sat at the front of the church, stumbling over a bad keyboard and trying to make music.  This, apparently, earns me the title of “gutsy”. 

Maybe it’s my English major soul that makes me balk at this word.  There must be a better adjective to describe this situation, I tell myself.  What springs immediately to mind is the southern expression of amusement, pity, and faint scorn, “Bless her heart.”  But gutsy, no.  It’s been a long time since I considered myself to have the brash, confident courage that makes up “guts”.

That doesn’t mean that I’ve never had it.  My mother used to tell me when I was a child that I had more guts than brains.  Not necessarily a good thing, as you may guess.  It usually meant that I was willing to throw myself into situations without really considering the consequences.  I was proud of the description, though.  I wanted to be seen as brave, and of course, as a child consequences are so rarely a factor in decision-making.  Sometimes I wish it were still that way.

It does seem, however, that there is more of that brave child still in me than I thought.  After all, I am still stepping up to that keyboard every Sunday, and spending my days in practicing so that every week there will be less stumbling and more music.  And an unknown someone—the kind of person whose perception of you is occasionally more accurate than your perception of yourself—called me “gutsy”, and meant it kindly.  Maybe in time I can come to believe it.  As my mother used to tell me, if I can balance guts and brains, I will be much better off.