Had to Be Fairies

Finally after a winter of adjectives that all mean gray, I felt the warm air off the lake on my face. I was looking out the 12th story window -- the one that doesn't open. Still it was not my imagination. Call it memory, if you must. Either way, my face and the lake air had connected again.

I grabbed my spring jacket, laced my shoes, and left the building. It was a good seven minutes that I just stood in the sun. I was thinking of the old Ray Bradbury story, "All Summer in a Day." My thoughts were clear on the idea that, if this were the only one, I'd take a day like this to hold in my being for a long, long time.

No direction. I went walking. I suspect I was smiling. Every detail of the new spring was a new life to me. The old lady in the brown winter coat looked so uncomfortable. The man walking the golden retriever looked like he had just been let out of jail. Personally, I felt like a puppy.

Wandering aimlessly. How long since I've done that? How long since I've just let my feet choose the way?

They directed me to a tree-lined side street. I found myself standing before a red brick stately home with a Chinese garden beside it. I watched the water in the stream under the bridge, as I looked through the wrought iron fence.

When I turned to go, my eyes feel on a little patch by a tree near the street. Someone had tossed theblooms from impatiens that had fallen off the potten plant on the porch. Who knows what that person was thinking?

I only know I stood imagining the fairies who brought them there. Had to be fairies, they were too beautiful. I walked home, glad to know that fairies still hang around.

Later that night I discovered a message from a long lost friend.

Sure am glad those fairies are still around.

--me liz strauss, letting me be

PJs and Possibilities!

When I took the Myers-Briggs, folks I worked with expected me to come out a "J," someone who likes closure, everything tied up neatly in a bow. Sometimes I so wish that were true about me. It sure seems that parts of life would be easier if I had just a little more of the "J" qualities.

The situation was such that I had to manage against my natural Myers-Briggs "P" preference to keep my options open. Publishing schedules and deadlines required that for success in my job. When I work against who I am naturally, I often exaggerate the quality I'm going for, so I ended up looking like a total "J." Things got done efficiently, but sometimes without the playful options that I usually bring to make the work fun.

Now, I publish for me. I'm thinking a little "J" might be a good thing. I'm out a schedule and a planner and building some confidence in my ability to make things happen again.

Think of the possibilities -- a whole horizon -- of what I'll get done.

It's whole new option for working in my PJs.

--me liz strauss, letting me be

A Cliff of Decision Making

I'm fairly sure I was born with a fear of heights.

Yet my uncle the photographer, the one with all of the expensive equipment would find every opportunity to take pictures that involved my cousins and I standing near dramatic scenery. How was it that I was always the one who ended up on the cliff side? It was always hard to find my way to a smile.

Even now, I can't walk up to the edge of a cliff without thinking that the sandy stone will give way. My imagination has me tumbling, down, down, down . . . even though, I'm fairly certain that's not meant to be a scene in my life.

I don't have the same experience when I reach a cliff of decision making.

Maybe it's the awe inspiring beauty of the world that sets me on my heels.

--me liz strauss, letting me be

Cold Gold Night

Now that the sun is back on the lake, I can think about cold, gold nights alone along the shore. The silence, the solitude that bring me to the reflections inside and on the water. I'm realizing I'm the one who imagines them there.

That's a good feeling, knowing who.

When I was kid, I lived each moment never wondering who I was, how the world was turning or turning out. Now with taxes and rent payments, I seem to spend time thinking of issues that will mean nothing on my dying day.

But a golden reflection alone along the shore of my true calling. Makes me feel warm and not alone at all.

--me strauss, Letting me be

Knowing Everything

Once I was desparate to know everything. Information was all that I had to feel safe, to understand, to make sense of how things worked.

Once I came to know myself, the need to know everything dissovled. I am safe. I understand. Everything makes and the universe works.

--me liz strauss, Letting me be

Clever, Not Really

I used to be clever.

If I wanted attention, all I had to do was show how clever I truly was.

Books were something I never had to read. I read them, devoured them, but I found them uninspiring. Rare was the book that offered me a thought that I'd never seen.

To be fair, I was quite clever. New thoughts were quite rare. I discovered the Pythagorean theorum before a book showed it to me. I connect dots most people couldn't see. I figured out things about people before writers wrote them in places I read them. I deciphered the mathematics of poetry and the poetry of mathematics, musically.

I was clever. It sure got me attention rapidly.

Deep inside, it felt like a magic trick, a gymnastics routine. "Look at me! I'm clever. Watch me do this! $10,000 if I'm not alive!"

Circus girl clever.

I didn't realize that wasn't the attention I needed. It didn't bring anyone closer to me.

Clever was clever, but I wasn't nice or reasonable.

Clever wasn't so clever, not really.

--me liz strauss, letting me be

Heartfelt

She said, "What color is the place where you keep your feelings?"

"Black and indigo like a moonlit night," I answered. "Close and safe, like a womb." And I felt myself, as I spoke, inside my feelings, as if I were inside a living cave.

"Where is this place?" she asked.

I formed my hands like two sides of a circle 10 inches across and positioned them in the air to the side of my left hip.

"What would happen if you moved them inside you?"

With that question, I was transported back in time softly, instantly. Looking out the window on a moonlit night in my past, I was realizing how I had pushed away, pushed out, set aside my feelings. From that past to that present, I had carried my heart alongside where no one could find it. It was close and attached, yet separate and alone.

I moved my hands to put my feelings back inside me.

In that moment, I knew the meaning of heartfelt.

--me liz strauss, letting me be