With a “crow hop” he kicked his back legs in the air, like horses might do, all muscle and equine-sweat. That small change was enough to send my five-year-old plummeting to the ground. Face forward, arms out, she landed stomach down in the dust of the arena.

The horse ran by as we ran to Naomi.

“Point to where it hurts, honey.” It’s always my go-to speech to my girls when they’ve been hurt. I want to know where to look for blood or bruises first.

“My LEG!” she screamed.

Oh God. Did she break it? It can happen. Kids break things and cowgirls fall of their horses.

Despite her tears, she could stand and walk so I knew she’d be okay.

After dusting her off, I picked her up and carried her to the car and I could begin to see the sizable bruise that would darken later that night on the meaty part of her little thigh.  She curled up under a blanket in her seat and, as we watched the rest of her sister’s lesson, she fell asleep. The crying, the fear and the fall had worn her out.

With living comes a certain amount of hazard. I could stop all lessons and shelter the girls from “falling” but would that somehow make me a better mom?

I stopped second guessing “risky sports” a few years ago after her older sister had had her 3^rd or 4^th fall off a horse. I decided that the joy of the sport comes with the risk and it’s part of the deal.  Everyone who rides a horse will fall someday; it’s inevitable.

The risk is worth it after I see my older daughter round her last barrel in a local competition.

She’s not holed up in a corner with a video game. She’s sucking the marrow out of life and feeling life course through her veins.  She’s grinning, she’s working hard as the arena dirt flies behind her and she’s exhilarated.

She’s truly living.

If my girls never got on horses, they’d never fall.

But the same is true about anything worth doing: If I never got married, I’d never feel the pain of loss someday when I’m widowed. If I never had children, they’d never grow up and move away. If I never loved a friend, they’d never say hurtful things. If I never engaged in community, I’d never be left out.

If I never LIVED, I’d never have risk. Living, at it’s very nature, IS risk.

Sometimes we’ll find ourselves face down in the dirt, bruised and crying. But that cannot stop us. We can’t measure our hurts against our risks of living. If so, we would die alone under a blanket in the corner of some room without having experienced the fullness and joy of being alive.

We need to round that last barrel, the end in sight, fast toward home. Dirt flying, crowd cheering, horse sweating.

Risky, yes. But oh, so fun.

 “Let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry… have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere — be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.”

from A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Do you take “life risks” or do you play it safe? What’s the last crazy-fun thing you did? Do you think it’s better to be “something” than not live at all?