Some convey their ideas and thoughts using detached, explicit language. Yesterday I presented a narrative about the importance I place on emotional empathy. Everything I write is from my point of view, but I hope what I write offers more than a diary of personal experience.

I try to show my feelings and thoughts in equal measure so they have the chance to matter, to you.

Every word I say, from my first to last, reveals, but only when those hearing care to return.

My aunt in her nineties was usually buoyant, but a darkness grips her. Perhaps it is her failing eyesight at a time when reading gave her most pleasure. Perhaps I have not given her the time she needed these past few days. She will not say. I too grow sad. Feeling is infectious.

I stay a while and talk. She listens, at first without much attention, then slowly, as my chuckle about my utter failure to resolve my latest creative challenge turns to self-mocking laughter, she smiles.

I am sometimes overwhelmed by the complexity and feeling of what to say and how. I fail to find the words that show my inner world, my joy, my pain, my love. I wish with all my heart it was not so.

Here, I take my time, I search for what is meant between myself and others. Here, in what I make, you come to know me. Here I show myself as best I can, I share those deepest things. You will find my most in my words, my art, my music, whether a stranger, or someone I care for and love.