Honesty.

I was asked once what my greatest motivator in life was, and my answer was expression.

One day, when I was a young girl about 7 or 8, my dad and sister came home from a walk, strongly shaken up.  My dad was in near hysterics as he told us what had happened on their way.  There was an accident which occurred right in front of them.  Two girls on bikes, inches in front of my sister, had been thrown into the air, and across the street.  I don't remember now what had happened to them.  I'm sure they were severely injured.  My dad was clearly thanking God that my sister hadn't been a step closer to the curb.  Both my dad and sister escaped unscathed, but I was in tears upon hearing their account.  Even recalling the story now, as common as this one might be, I choke up and have little wet puddles on the brims of my eyes.  I said, quietly, to my dad, "We don't tell each other enough that we love each other.  We need to do that."

I don't know why my dad remembers this event so well, but to my bashfulness, he tells it often.  He recalls it with the air of a fable... more for the moral rather than the story.  And I can't help it... every time he brings it up, my heart swells with the fear that I might not get the chance to express my heartfelt love and affection for the people around me before it's too late.

And so I have gone forth into life, with a quietly overwhelming urgency to share whatever I am feeling as soon as I feel it, in an act of spontaneity that feels like I have taken in too much oxygen, and with complete disregard to understanding myself or even caring.  It might be a dangerous game for some, but not for me.  There's no shame in honesty of the heart.  The real peril is in losing our opportunities to express.

So, the music.  Don't know where all this Americana is coming from, but here it is again.

Here we go, Day 130: https://ia600801.us.archive.org/19/items/Improv122211/12_22_119_46Pm.mp3