Like Water Falling

When I was a little girl, I used to think of life as time passing, as days going by and it would seem like water falling. I like the feel of water falling. I like the sound of waterfalls. I like the look of them. They seem so primitive, so unencumbered, so real and untouched by people. They’re an actuality of nature. They need rainfall to exist.
Now I think of life as memories collecting, as days filling with happenings, and treasure moments when it is like water falling, easy, loud and unencumbered, primitive, so real and not hemmed in by people.
Once in a while, a lovely day gets to be an actuality of nature.
Those are the days I live for.
Cool, clean, crisp, cleansing, easy, like water falling.
--me strauss Letting me strauss

Clouds

I like clouds. They make the sky so much more special when the sun is shining. I hate to think of the sun alone in all of that blue. It seems like there’s so much more excitement and so much more texture to a sky with clouds floating around.

Even when the sun is hiding, I like clouds – big, fat fluffy ones, dark, Batman frowny ones, those that look like they might come tumbling down like the bottom of cheap, old, cardboard egg cartons. The best are those that turn colors in the sunrise and sunset.

Those are the clouds that God made just for filling up writers and artists, and sweethearts and soulmates, and anyone who can see.

−me strauss Letting me be

Sleep

A yawn comes. They saw that yawns are contagious. No one is near enough to catch this one. Still I yawn again and stretch really big. My eyes start closing even as I type this.

I remember when I could stay up all night. Fact was that I could not sleep.My brain was so busy. It just wouldn't stop. Now I write and I write and I write and finally

My brain finds that it has some peace.

-me strauss Letting me be

The Tilt-a-Whirl Tradition

We used to sit inside the tilt-a-whirl. It was my cousins and I, packed together, four or five of us. I usually ended up in the middle, and for once. I actually liked it that way. In the middle I could see the lights go by. I could breathe. I was on the ground, so I wasn’t afraid. I knew I could fly. The middle was the driver's seat on a tilt a whirl. It was the place to be when you took a ride.

The big chair would start swaying, moving slowly, across the hilly wood floor. The sound inside the hood of the chair was muffled and eerie, part of the fun and part of the ride.

We’d look at each other, because that’s how we did such things. We had our ways. We had them about everything, even things as specific as this carnival ride.

Just as the car-chair came around that high point, the very first time, right near the carny guy, we’d all lean forward and turn our head outward to him to yell, “Faster, faster,” as we went by. He was our friend. He always the one who strapped us in the chair. He always smiled and had a tattoo.

Every time we went by we said it again, again, “Faster, faster.” Just like that. Only two times.

The carny guy would laugh. Sometimes he would say, “Okay then,” and give a push of power as we went by.

I never heard any other kids say that. I don’t recall anyone telling me they did. "Faster faster," seems a thing that was only our way.

I don’t know how we came to say it ourselves.

It was tradition.

That’s how tradition is.

−me strauss Letting me be

The Music of the Language

I like words. I like the music of the language. I especially like the words that live inside my head.

I’m not talking about ideas. I’m talking about the sounds words are making when they’re playing, bouncing, jumbling, making all of those wordly dance moves, running, jumping, tumbling through my otherwise encumbered brain cells.

Words are really lively critters. They’re hard to hold once they get going, flitting, fluttering, floating, fireflying.

Words can actually build into feelings. They don’t have to. They have their own sense of being. There is no bossing them around−not the words that live in my head. My words do not allow for their own immediate, inescapable agendas, They hold no tolerance for continuous partial attention, no building into multitudinous hyperventilation. If they see it, they just pop!

The words become like butterflies and sunshine again.

The words in my head have no patience for things like stress and pains in the neck.

That might be why I like them so much.

−me strauss Letting me be

When Three Good Reasons Become One

I remember when I was really small. Whenever my dad would come home, I would run and hide. I had several tiny hiding places, because I was a tiny girl. Even then, I think I knew that my daddy didn’t really try to find me. He walked in took off his hat, put it on the dining room table, and began to call my name as if he were looking for me.

Eventually I’d get tired of waiting and run out to find him.

Then he would catch me. My dad would hold me tightly in a bear hug and he wouldn’t let me go. I would be so totally stuck.

“Daddy, please let go now.” I would lament.

He would laugh and tickle me.

“Give me three good reasons why I should.”

I would call for my mother’s help. She would say, “This is between you two.”

“But Dad, I don’t know three reasons.”

“Then I guess you’re stuck.” He would laugh and tickle me more.

“Okay, okay, Daddy, I’ve got them. Three reasons.”

“I’m ready. What are they?"

“I love you; I love you; and I love you very much.”

It worked every time.

−me strauss Letting me be

The First Idea

I wonder what it was like on that very first day, when darkness gave way to light, when someone said, “Let there be . . . ,” and there was. Did it work like it does for me? Were there feelings first, little glimmers and small echoes that had meaning, but no words, no way, no daylight to explain them? Did they waft on chords delightful and mysterious or weigh in on thoughts that shrugged with eternal weight and chains?

My idea feelings turn to translucent colors and if I wait with patience long enough I’ll finally find a way to say them. Is that how it happened on that first day? Is that how the first sound came into being? Was it a moment born of patience from translucent colors?

Some ideas come to me pristine and pure, served up genuine, creative filled with generosity, joy, complete and whole. Maybe that’s the way it was. Nothing . . . And then, there it was . . . artful, awesome, astonishing, love expressed in every sense − seeing, tasting, smelling, touching, hearing, hearing the sounds of heaven, as if the air were made of them, as if I could taste every one.

I think about this often. Creation is a such a vibrant, breathtaking idea. It's mathematical, artful, poetic, elegant, childlike, human, strong, and loving−everything I've ever cared about, joined together to look simple.

I can’t help but wonder what it was like on the day when the first idea was being born.
Somehow I know everyone of us was part of it.
I can feel it in my bones. I can see it the sky and in the stars.

And all that I can think to say is "thank you,"

to everyone I know.

−me strauss Letting me be

Sometimes at 11:10p.m., when a day has gone wrong and been up-side down. I take a few minutes before I go to bed, just to write for myself. It's my way of letting myself and the cosmos know that even the telephone company and the computer can get the best of me. I always have a few words that are just my own saved up and cherished and set here, set down right here for us alone.

These words smile quietly with me under the old white oak tree on the riverbank across the backyard where I grew up.

−me strauss Letting me be

Good Fortune

Finding good fortune, it’s all around me. It’s in voices, the words of the folks that I talk to, in kindnesses written and spoken and sent. People say such nice things. People do such nice things for me. I am surrounded by people who offer gifts that are priceless, valuable in the deepest sense – at a time when I have less than no money, at a time when I’m working harder than I’ve worked before and I’m hardly making ends meet.

A few months ago I was afraid, but no longer.

Now I see the good fortune that surrounds me, and somehow it buoys me, nurtures me in just the right way. I know that this knot too shall untie itself, work itself out as all of the others in my life ever did, and the work that I'm doing will be worth the dues that I’ve paid.

Yet, I’ll never replace or repay the priceless, joyous good fortune that surrounded me−for no reason at all−on this very long, very ordinary, first summer day.

−me strauss Letting me be

The Ocean and the Shore

There’s a rocky beach where the moonlight sits on the water. The water is so still and blue. It's so still and lit like fire, you might think that it was magical. You might think that if I touched it my hand would come away with color.

Iridescent, yet clear and lovely, like pure emotion, it’s the night ocean. It’s not perfect. It’s not made for swimming or for drinking. It’s made for being, for being an ocean.

Love is like that ocean. We can’t own it. We can only be amazed by it’s sheer power to astonish and astound us. We can touch it, move it and let it move us, even be a part of it. We can surround ourselves within it. We can walk in and walk out, or simply stand there.

My heart holds so much of that love, yet I still long for those rocks on the shore. They hold their own mystery, their own power and challenge. Finding a way along the rocks is freedom, life and joy. Those rocks were surely put there just for climbing, just as a child’s swing set was made for swinging. Everything has purpose. Climbing rocks is important. Knowing love is even more.

Seems like love and climbing are like the ocean and the shore.

Just beyond that ocean is the darkest night sky with the softest wish of deep indigo and violet hope. It’s waiting, waiting on my horizon, past my rocky shore. It’s so still and lit like fire, you might think that it was magical. You might think that if I touched my hand would come away with color. That’s where I think I’m heading, to other side, where I can be iridescent and indigo and surrounded by love and climbing rocks with freedom and joy.

−me strauss Letting me be

Books

When I was little I could read very early, but I didn’t have any time for books. Books had beginnings and endings and only one story. What good was that? My head had so many and they were damn good.

My backyard was so full of adventures and pathways to glory. I had so many other important things to do. I had a basement full of music and dancing. A gooseneck lamp microphone bent near any time an important world speech needed speaking. A flashlight held high with a hand could light any world stage. Sneakers were perfect for any international spy's kind of sneaking. Books just sat there with words looking back at me, black boring letters on dulling white pages. How much imagination did all of that take?

Now I read anything I can get my hands on. I read adventures and learn about pathways to glory. I find out about music and dancing and people and places I didn't know then. I've found the magic between and around the letters and in the white spaces.

Maybe my imagination has changed.

−me strauss Letting me be

Walking at Night in the City

People are different at night. At least I know I am. I get mellower, softer, more in touch with the stars and the stuff the stars are made of. I get to feeling better about how the world turns and about the people who live here. I feel there is more space to breathe.

I like to go walking at night. I like to walk when I meet a new friend. Walking makes it easy to talk about things. We share the motion and rhythm of the conversation and the motion and rhythm of the walking. In some small way it’s almost like dancing, without touching.

When we dance we give and take. We lead and follow intricate footsteps without really watching each other. Dancing is kinesthetic, heartfelt, and feeling-full and mathematical. Dancing is a nice way to get to know someone. It’s slower and less intrusive than a conversation filled with eye contact and questions that are only in our heads.

Walking through New York City this week, I spent three hours getting to know a new friend. We talked of things that we might never have mentioned had we be sitting in a single place trying to hold a conversation. Walking at night in the city isn't like trying to hold anything. It's like dancing your way into a friendship.

At least that’s how it seems to me.

−me strauss Letting me be

Still a Mystery

Friends light up our lives in much the same way that fireflies light up the night with bits of joy in unexpected places. This unexpected gift of beauty came in my email box from a friend today. She is like the fireflies she writes about.

−me strauss Letting me be

Still a Mystery
Going on three years
and they’re still a mystery
lights shining in dusks’ deepest shadows
playing tricks on my eyes

sheer delight
a summer’s night

joy and magic
pierce days’ cares
with gratuitous sparks
of spirit-life.

Jhopman
6/18/06

Juxtapositioning

The most interesting thing happened on the airplane. I'm sure the guy sitting next to me was on a modern-day business trip. He had no idea that I was traveling by train on a luxury European railway in the 1940s. It was an amazing juxtapositioning in my head.

−me strauss Letting me be

On an Airplane

On Wednesday, I'll be on an airplane again. I'm off to New York City for a short seminar until Friday.

There's a knack to being an air traveler. It involves imagination, being able to detach and enter into the adventure. When I get on an airplane I can be anyone. I can feel all of my worldly attachments fall away.

It's like the opposite of grade school where everyone knew me and all of the things that I'd done since first grade. I can be anyone I want to be.

Sometimes I wish the flight would be longer.

−me strauss Letting me be

You Just Have to Wonder

When the world doesn’t make sense anymore, when the rules seem to be all turned around, there’s really not much you can do.

Everyone’s been there.

Despite how it feels, the sky’s not really falling.

Look around you. There are thousands of people who, despite how they look, they’ve had days just like you are having. Maybe they are having one at this very moment and like you, they just aren’t letting on.

Sometimes you just have to let go of what troubles you.
Sometimes you just have to open your arms to the air, give your heart to the wind.
Sometimes you just have to look up at the sky.
Sometimes it does your soul good to look up in wonder.

−me strauss Letting me strauss

Paying Attention

Sitting in school I would hear them say, “Pay attention.” I would sit up straight and listen. Then I grew up, and friends told me things like, “It was school. I knew I was supposed to be bored.”

That threw me. Was I bored? I didn’t think so. I was odd and off thinking. My mom was often told if only . . . If I would use my mind, I was, after all, the smartest girl in the room. I didn’t know that. What did that mean? I paid my attention. Didn't I?

It cost me hours of sitting up straight and listening. I paid. It cost.

I tried talking, but I was always talking about things that were things that no one else had thought about. They never paid attention. It cost me some embarassment.

So I went back to paying attention. That’s what they mean by a penny for your thoughts. It costs to think your own thoughts when no one really wants to listen.

Luckily I could go home to a wealth of conversation with my dad who would pay heed to what his little girl was saying. So I could give him a piece of my mind along with a generous helping of my heart.

−me strauss Letting me be

So Many Things

So many things in the world look so exciting and interesting. So many things incite my curiosity. Rock bands and symphonies and movies and plays that I’d like to see. Forests and canyons and mountains that call to me. Airplanes I want to ride. Friends that I long to be with. I almost freeze when I think of all of the choice. I cannot for the life of me choose which I should do first. So most times I don’t do any.

I have to do something to undo this not doing so that I can start doing these things.

−me strauss Letting me be

The Crabapple Tree

Once upon a time in my re-memory . . . when I was eight or eleven, I was in the dollhouse town. It was summer. We were in our summertime clothes, doing things that kids did then, outside things−baseball, running, walking down the middle of empty roads. We had all the time in the world until sundown, and all day to spend it.

Gosh, the days were beautiful then. The sky was blue and clouds would drop rain and keep right on going. It always amazed me when they did that. It only stopped us playing for a minute so that we could watch. It never once made us get wet.

I only recall finding that crabapple tree one time. It was like something out of the Wizard of OZ. I think we wandered down some road just to see where it would take us and found ourselves sitting underneath a fine crabapple tree, leaning back against the trunk and talking like we owned the world.

Crabapple trees aren’t very big. They’re apple trees made for kids to sit under, especially if you're a kid of eight or eleven with your boy best friend in a kind of Tom Sawyer storybook town. Kids don’t usually sit anywhere as long as we did that day under that crabapple tree. We had the greatest view−farmland and a farmhouse in the distance and not a car or grownup anywhere−and plenty of crabapples to eat.

I’d never had a crabapple before that day. I really liked how they fit just right inside my hand. The little apples were the perfect green color. They sure are sour. My boy best friend said they always are. I don't know, but I couldn’t quit eating them. I didn’t get sick. I just got a colorful memory. One that stays with me farmland and my back against that old crabapple tree isn't a bad way to spend a day at all.

Once upon time it really did happen to me.

Those crabapples were so good. I haven’t had the heart to eat one since.

−me strauss Letting me be

Creativity on Demand

I will not write tonight.
My brain cannot pull together another coherent thought that is lovely, that would bring joy or offer peace to a soul wandering in the darkness.

Writing has stretched my mind, pulled it out, pushed it on, worked it like a trudging plowhorse.

Tonight I will look at the stars.
They will wear my thoughts for me.

−me strauss Letting me be

The Lioness

My mother taught me everything thing I know about strength and courage in the face of adversity. She challenged me at every turn. She feared the world would hurt me. She knew I had too many feelings. She wasn't always sure quite what to do with me. How long was it before I understood? She was a Leo, a lioness, who had lost much, yet never raged or roared righteously, never tore at the world for what it took from her.

There is a difference between love for a child that is hard, distant, and conditional and protective love that is fiercely courageous, yet unspeakingly fearful.
−me strauss Letting me be

Storyteller

My father taught me everything I know about love and being happy. He knew about people. He didn't see much reason that I had to learn the hard way the things that he had already learned. He's the reason I tell stories. He told stories to me.

Every story he told was true, even the ones that didn't happen.

−me strauss Letting me be

Walking the Tightrope

Sometimes, when no one is looking, I walk on the edge of curb, one foot in front of the other, pretending that it's a dangerous tightrope, just like I did when I was a little girl. I even dip one foot down the side as a special balancing trick.

I should do that more often.

−me strauss Letting me be

NFTV: The Letters on a Pirate Hat

When my son was five, he was the Letter Man. He wouldn’t wear any shirt that didn’t have letters on it. In computer talk it, it was the gating factor. Letters, he’d wear it. No letters he would not. End of story. No argument. He had his standards.

His Kindergarten teacher had planned a great day−a day that all kids dream of. It would be Pirate Day. All of the kids would get to be pirates. They would learn about pirate ships. maps, and pirate words. They would eat pirate food−some sort of blueberry dump. They would dress as pirates and search for treasure. They made pirate hats and scary eye patches. At the end of the day, they wore them and went treasure hunting.

When my son came home from school that afternoon, I had to ask about the pirate hat that he had made.

“I see you have a lovely pirate hat.”
“Yes.”
“I see that it has no letters.”
“Yes.”
“Did you wear it when you went looking for pirate treasure:”
“No.”
“I see. Did the other kids wear pirate hats?”
“All of them.”
“Well, pirates do wear pirate hats. I'm wondering how you decided not to?”

That's when he shared his logic with me.

“I thinked about it and my think said, ‘Are there letters on this pirate hat?’ My think said, ‘No.’ So I decided not to.”

I had my answer.

−me strauss Letting me be

If Only I Could Play

Even when I’m bone tired and oh so weary, even when I don’t want to see . . . I hear the music. I hear the sweet soft song of all the years that have gone by − of all the years that will be. I hear my father call me. My spirit comes to me on the lightest note. The music is a sound inside me. It reminds me that I can dance.

The music shows me how to love and how to care, how to live and how to believe. The music makes the sounds of people purer, sweeter. It smoothes out the roughest edges and softens the hardest words.

The sounds inside me know that everyone has music. It’s been part of every culture. It’s born in every heart. If I could only play the right key, hit the harmony, . . . if I could only find a way to remind them . . . give them the beauty, hold them with a sigh beside me. We could imagine a moonlight of music play across the stars.

No one would be lonesome or lonely. No one would need to scream or cry.

If only I could play the music. They could dance with me.

−me strauss Letting me be

Life as It Should Be

My friend, KB is a writer. She doesn't blog. She has a life. She writes with the same spirit that she lives her life. I just yesterday wrote about an adventure with KB. It was with KB that I went to the Grand Canyon. We've been friends for most of my son's life.

Tonight I was thinking about what to write. I was thinking about life and lifelong friends, friends like KB. And this showed up in my email. She's always been full of life and full of surprises. She sent this email last night. It's George Carlin she's paraphasing, but it sure sounds like her philosophy of life. Maybe they're really the same person.

Come to think of it. I've never seen them together. . . . .

Life as It Should Be
via KB

The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends.

I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get in the end of it? A death. What's that all about? I mean, is that supposed to be some kind of a bonus?

I have been thinking alot about this and I think the life cycle is all
backwards.

You should die first, you know, start out dead, get it out of the way. Then you should wake up in an old age home, feeling younger and better every day.

You then get kicked out of the home for being too healthy, go collect your pension, then after a couiple of years you start work and you get a gold watch and a party on your very first day.

You work 40 years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You're generally promiscuous. You drink alcohol, you party and you get ready for High School Hey, you've only got a few years left, what's the big deal?

Then you go to elementary school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities. Finally, you become a baby.

The last step, you spend your last 9 months floating peacefully with luxuries like central heating, spa, room service on tap, larger quarters everyday, and then:...........................

You finish off as an orgasm!

I'm a very lucky girl to have friends like that.

Thank you, KB, for keeping me straight on things.

—me strauss Letting me be

They Took My Baby Doll

Tonight, there was another one. They stole one of my memories and put it up as if it were their own. It’s out there on another blog. It’s theft of something I own−not my words. Who cares about letters I wrote down? I’ve done that beyond counting. It’s the piece of my heart, my childhood taken and used as if , as if it were nothing but a commodity. Memories are not commodities. They are the stuff of life itself.

−me strauss Letting me be

25 Words: Hours, Minutes, Seconds

Today
hours, minutes, seconds
one day
bits of life given
to work
friends
husband
son
I lived
I am happy

hours, minutes, seconds

I dance

−me strauss Letting me be