25 Words: Ideas Again

25 wds

I stretch my arms, opening up, arcing out.
I surrender to creativity.
I let go of my needs.
The ideas find me again.
Thank you.

−me strauss Letting me be

Playing at School

I’m having this thought about a book I read over 16 years ago. It talked about how many people spend more energy playing games and doing hobbies, and they invest in their work. It pointed out how folks can come home from work exhausted. Then, go workout or go play baseball with their local backyard team.

The man who wrote the book, Charles A. Coonradt tested his idea by turning work tasks into measurable self-competing contests. People were asked to weigh the paper they filed every day. Suddenly a department that had been behind for three years was ahead and had 3 hours extra each day. They asked for more, if he would find a way that they could measure the new task too. He calls his book, The Game of Work.

I was thinking, What if we made schoolwork into a game? What if we took it outside of the school building and made extracurricular? Would more kids love to learn math and science and history then?

What if we made the mandatory curriculum be art, music, and dance? Would we ruin the joy of these simply by making them have-tos?

I guess, I’ll never know what would happen then.

On the other hand, I bet we all could predict.

Why can’t we find a way to share the joy without needing strings attached?

It’s the presentation, not the content.

−me strauss Letting me be

Instinct and Individuality Maps

Some teachers say all children are a blank slate.
Some say they discover what they already know.
Ideas. I think about some ideas for over a decade. I wonder on them, adding new information as my life lets me gather it. One of those ideas is how we come to life with no information about who we are at the core of our being. We spend our lives figuring that out or having that fact get in the way. We have no clue about other people either. I’ve wondered what it might be like if we did.

I understand the complicated workings of nature and nurture. That as babies our brains are somewhat like virgin snow awaiting footprints, awaiting neural pathways of experience to be marked by what we do, what we learn, where our curiosity takes us. Yet some of my thinking came with me. It was on my personal SIM card. It’s programmed there on my DNA. It’s my part of my gene pool -- thought I’m not my genes, my genes are me.

Suppose that we could know what our talents are, what values comprise us on the genetic level. No potter would go to the wheel to make a vase from an unknown material. It seems almost wasteful to spend so our lives figuring out what substance we are. What if we cme with that information -- the color and kind of clay from which we are made? That would not stop us from adding new shades to the mixture or developing new compounds.

If only we had that bit of information to sculpt a life with, maybe then we could move our focus away from who we are -- from ourselves.

Imagine being able to really know we are. We come with instinct. Why not come with an individuality map? I bet such maps would be beautiful, like spiral stairways lighted with what we do best.

How the world would change! People wouldn’t nearly be so defensive. We could look at each other without fear that someone might have or be something that we think we might need to have to be.

We could spend our days finding others like us, tuning in on our frequency, and forging our path.

Right now it’s a big enough quest for me to understand others. Yet to do that, I have to spend so much time learning about myself.

I’d show you my individuality map, if you’d show me yours.

−me strauss Letting me be

One Thing at a Time

You talking to me?

Uh-oh. Someone’s multitasking

Multitasking. Everyone has been doing in some sort of a multitasking, motor-sensory, mechanical, keep this moving, aren’t I good, hamster-on-wheel mental machine event. It is like the tacit multitasking Olympics of life.

I imagine it as something like ropin' cow at a rodeo. Ride after him, lasso his back legs, jump down, and loop that rope around, and throw your hands in the air all with in ten seconds flat.

HA! But that that rodeo guy has it easy. He’s really only doing one task. No wonder he can do it so well.

Get him to try to do that while he is working on a project, answering email, and getting interrupted every 7 minutes when a commercial comes on TV. I used to think that I was good enough to do it. Now I know I was crazy, cranky, and causing more problems than ever I fixed.

I’ve quit doing it. I’m calmer, kinder, caring more about what I do.

Life was running so smoothly until . . .

He’s started multitasking.

−me strauss Letting me be

Random Warp Travel Thought Theory

My brothers think that I come from another planet. They don’t tell me that. They might not even know. I bet if you asked them, they would deny it. That doesn’t change the fact that they think it, and that I know it.

I used to wonder whether it could be so that I come from another planet. Now I know it’s not.

I came from this planet. I’ve figured that out this morning while I poured my third cup of coffee.

I’ve been on this planet from birth – no doubt. I just live on a different one most times now.

Here's how I travel. I wrote a response to something that was a week and a half old − only I didn’t know it. I thought the message I answered was alive and current. I didn’t realize the conversation was over until I finished what I was saying. I do that in real-life conversations almost daily.

While I stirred my coffee, I remembered a response that I gave a while back. That one was on time and on topic, but I spoke to the wrong person. The right person said, “Liz, catch up. The other guy’s been gone for months.” He doesn't remember that I'd thought he was the other guy once before. I do.

Once a man introduced himself by saying "Hi, I'm Tom." I said, "No, you're not." Thank goodness, he thought I was joking. I wasn't.

This morning, I realized those things happen a lot. I respond to a ghost, a concept, or cross information. My brain misfires on one nano-connection, and I’m on a new planet in a time warp, living a parallel reality. Some folks might call it not paying attention, eccentric, absent-minded professorism. Others would point and say “Ha! It’s insanity.”

I think that I work so hard to match words with ideas for folks to make sense of them, that sometimes I lose sight of the context in which I’m standing. When the words are right, I breathe. I look. I find that I’ve just waxed eloquently on Neptune, when everyone was giving opinions on ice cream.

I don’t know how to look outward and inward at once.

So for the moment, I’ll call it a space anomaly, deeply rooted in hyper-concentrated random warp travel thought theory.

In other words, when it comes to thinking and talking, I’m kind of spacey.

−me strauss Letting me be

Thinking Creatively

WHEN or where do you need to be creative?
It was a simple question. I tried to answer with specifics, but my fingers hit the keyboard and my thoughts took flight.

Anywhere, everywhere, constantly, always. It’s who I am. It’s what I do. I’m a writer, a teacher, a mother, a person.

That was the only answer that I had. It was the only answer that was true.

How do you feel when you ARE creative?
Even typing that question now, days later, my body relaxes, I feel clear, and I hear myself let out an audible sigh.

Free, intelligent, joyful, part of the fun . . .

Why do I feel so grateful to be asked that question? Why have I never asked myself that question before? The answer was waiting, knew itself, came to life with such exuberance. It danced it’s way onto the page . . .

except when the wrong people are in the room.

Then it froze, like deer in the headlights, frightened of who might see. . . .

----------------------------------------------------------------

I’ve worried over how people misinterpret me. I’ve studied their inability to “read” the simplest things I am. I’ve wondered about the way that they react badly when I am happy, when I'm playing, when I'm all out being who I really am.

Maybe I’ve just found out why.

Maybe I’ve found out why I feel joyful when I help people solve their problems. Maybe I now know why I feel lighter, freer, safer, me when I can wonder alone walking under the night sky. Maybe I understand a bit more about why “group think” scares me, tires me, and makes me feel like I must contain myself. Surely I now must see the reason I feel anxious when I set myself free with someone who doesn’t know me yet.

Why would the world be afraid of creativity?

Worse yet, why would I ignore my joy?

How did I learn to do that without even knowing that I did?

Imagine that two well asked questions brought me to so many answers.

That is the way with creative thinking, isn't it?

−me strauss Letting me be

Changing Colors

Hold Fast to Your Truth
“Hold fast to your truth,” that was what he said. “Don’t change your mind or what you feel, to avoid conflict.”

I don’t think I do that, but I might.

Creativity, innovate thinking, imagination requires the ability to see things from many points of view, to move my mind and my feelings in, around, and through an idea. It’s almost like turning thoughts into water and letting them rush around uncontained, seeking to touch walls that might be there, mingling within the grains of other ideas, matching feeling for other feelings, mixing colors with other colors.

When a friend poses an argument that is opposite my own, I stop. I consider. Is this worth arguing about or shall I try it on instead? Usually the latter is more fun and more educational. Why argue for what I already know? Why not explore and question what’s been put on the table?

Meeting a friend at the core of his argument is that giving up my truth to avoid conflict or is that hearing his truth to expand my own?

I don’t know.

I know I always reach inside to find out how I am like you. That sometimes makes me feel a bit like I am a chameleon.

Maybe changing colors is my truth.
Maybe my truth is to learn how to feel other peoples’ feelings.

−me strauss Letting me be

Anywhere, Everywhere, Anything, Everything

London, not far from Baker St. Station.
Richard and I were walking. . .
I was saying. “What do you think about me commuting, living two weeks in California and two weeks in Boston, traveling so much that in the last year I’ve not slept longer than 21 days in my own bed?”
He smiled. He knows me well. He thought and then he said, “I think you don’t want to live anywhere.”
I stopped. I looked at him and said, “I think I want to live everywhere.” ____________

I’ve always wanted to live everywhere, do everything, be everyone. When there was a play every part was the part that I was interested in. I thought they all looked like fun. I wanted to try them all on. I wanted to be the light man and the prop master, and move scenery. Could I help make costumes and work in the ticket booth too?

It really was a bit of a problem. Not for me, but for the universe of everyone. I had to keep my feelings a secret, because they thought I wanted to be in control of everything. It wasn’t control. Control meant nothing. It was an overwhelming sense of curiosity.

Everything has so much to offer, and I have only one life to explore a whole universe.

Of course, one of the everything is knowing how to do one thing.

I know the power of doing one thing well. That’s why I write from the minute I wake until I go to bed. I think I picked the right one thing, because I can write about anything and everything.

Anywhere, everywhere, anything, everything, that's the gift of writing.

−me strauss Letting me be

Favorite Colors

People have always confused me on some level. I couldn’t find my frequency with most them.

I didn’t have a favorite color. Colors are all so beautiful, especially when they’re all together. Why would I want to separate them? How could I want to choose just one? I hardly know how to do that now. Still my answer starts with, “It depends . . .”

Most folks find that response to be the wrong one. They think I’m being difficult, or clever, or taking their serious question too lightly. They don’t realize I’m actually taking their question too deeply into my heart. I want to answer. I don’t know how.

That’s when the tables get reversed. That’s when I confuse most people. They think that I’m too intelligent not to understand something they intuitively know.

They look for a motive. Motive isn’t a nice word. It comes packed in popcorn made from the judgment of a negative brand. The nicest brand is Reluctance. On that shelf sits Resistance, Defiance, and Arrogance. But on the shelf across from it are the boxes marked No Experience and Not Enough Information to Decide.

If only my right-brain creativity would serve me. The words come so slowly and so intensely. That my replies sound like a defense rather than an attempt to say that my brain needs to find a way to explain.

I can describe the colors around what’s happening, but I cannot access the words.

I think in colors. How could I possibly choose one that is the best?

Most children don’t choose a favorite musical note or a favorite letter of the alphabet.

They’re all my favorite colors. They all live inside my head.

−me strauss Letting me be

Gems that Are Feelings

A single feeling may be the world’s rarest gem. They don’t occur alone in their pure and beautiful state often. Feelings of every kind are so electro-magnetic in nature. They attach to almost everything they are near.

When I was young feelings joined hormones with feet and rode on hormones with wings. They mixed cocktails with other feelings, turned into music, and made people’s names change. They were flowers, and sunrises, and the morning alarm clock.

To experience a feeling true and pure is stunning and wonderful. It may have happened twice in my life for sure. The rest of the time feelings came as part of a group -- love and happiness with a touch of insecurity, or maybe anger and confusion with a thread of compassion woven through.

But it can happen that a feeling can come without any others.

The doctor told my father that my mother, who was in a coma, would die by the end of that week.

No one, no person, no doctor can know that. He was wrong to think that, to say that, to tell my dad that about my mother. He was incredibly wrong to draw a line in the sand that would make an old man wait at the hospital, sleep on a four foot plastic loveseat in case that happened, in case the love of his life died in the middle of the night.

She did not die in that week.

I felt pure anger. I was anger alone. I had no other feeling. It was anger − plain, pure, perfect, simple. It was quiet, soft, and calm. It was as anger should be − natural and not fearful, with no need to harm. When anger isn’t mixed up with hormones and other feelings. It’s a fulfilling and gentle feeling.

It was easy to tell the man that God didn’t think he was a doctor and that he, the doctor, shouldn’t think he was God either.

Now I’m older and more feelings have lost their electricity. They aren’t so quick to attach to hormones. They are not so magnetic as they once were. My feelings like going deep and having space to spread out now. The words to describe them have become more important than the call to action that used to be them.

If pure anger can feel that way, just imagine what pure joy would be. What about love?

I’m learning how to polish and value the gems that are my feelings.

−me strauss Letting me be

Seeing Me

I cannot live my life inside my head, nor can I live it by pushing my mind outside to watch myself and others as we interact − that’s not living, nor is it learning. It is like trying to be inside my head and theirs, but it is not achieving that.

I used to do that. It is a marvelous and amazing skill that I have, or so I think. I can be in conversation and outside watching, listening, recording every word, every reaction, keeping track. Other people can do it too, I know that. We have talked about it.

I was a video camera for such interactions. Years later and I can still tell you what you were wearing, where you sat, what you said, what I said back. I learned to do it so early, I had no idea that it was a defense. I didn’t know that I was trying to protect myself by keeping track of every nuance of what was happening, in case I made some awful mistake − so that later, if I needed to I could replay the tape.

Once I thought that kind of paying attention was a good thing.

I was sure that I was recording what you saw and thought. That was such a silly assumption on my part. How could I possibly be? When I pulled myself out of my head and thought I was looking through your eyes, I was only seeing what I would see, if you looked at the world the way I supposed you might see.

Now I know that the marvelous and amazing skill teaches people not to trust me. On some level they sense I am not fully in the moment and wonder where I am and what I’m doing.

What was I doing? I was borrowing your eyes to fool myself into feeling secure. I was getting new information about the ways that I thought people judged me. Ironic, isn’t it? In my own fear of being judged, I was unconsciously judging others − by my way of not seeing them.

One day. I realized how much energy I was wasting, how much information I was inventing, how much I wasn’t learning by splitting myself up that way. I also came face to face with the idea that maybe this marvelous and amazing skill was the reason that people found me hard to read despite my willingness to reveal things, despite my feeling fully free with information, really despite my deep yearning to have them know me and me them.

When I stopped monitoring and recording every conversation, I lost my phenomenal memory of what you wore, where you sat, what you said and I said back.

But I found you.

And I found that I have to be fully present if I want you to see me.

−me strauss Letting me be

What I Value

I've been looking to find a self-definition, a single value, a word, that wraps all of the other values I hold dear inside it. If I find that value that is my center, I can focus, balance, dance on the edge. I’ve been thinking about what core value defines me.

Tonight I wrote an email that said this:

Again I find myself wanting to help, wanting to say “thank you,” and wanting to get out of the way.

You don’t know how well that defines me.

I am working on this one. I value space, and independence, creativity and helping, and trust, and forgiveness, and compassion, and peace. Yeah peace backlit with joy.

−me strauss Letting me be

Infinity in the Starlight

All of the world is designed is to remind you . . . what it like to be overjoyed. Christine Kane.

I listen to my life from the inside out, and from the outside in. When I’m really lucky I’m right there on the edge, the rim where the music meets the rainbow, where the sense begins. I’m awake, alive. The sounds are pure. There is no static, no stressful soundings, no sadness interrupting.

I don’t need more than the usual bravery to stand tall. I don’t need more than the usual grace to open my arms. I don’t need.

I surrender thought.. On this tiny edge, I’m surrounded. Music is always playing. Colors are always blending, and the joy . . . the joy is always waiting, patiently waiting for me to let it in.

I close my eyes and put on my headphones. I listen.

My inside comes forward. My outside comes near. Joy gently fills the tiniest gap as if it's the grout that holds everything together.

When that gap gets too wide, I am overwhelmed, but tonight I am overjoyed.

It’s such a quiet feeling. I am a ballerina dancing on infinity in the starlight.

−me strauss Letting me be

On the Ground

Suppose the world was an animate being. Suppose it was sentient, that it had feelings, that it was connected by those feelings to us and to the stars. Suppose that everything we did, or thought, or wondered had the power to make it better by just a bit. Our good feelings might make more flowers. Our joy might join a torn leaf. Our light-hearted laughter might loosen the choking vines that have tied themselves around a stump.

Life on the planet would all be connected in even more ways than it already is. because we’d realize the goodness would go both ways. One soft touch of a breeze could lighten the weight of heavy heart. The rainbow would be more than a bright light across the sky, because the world would be clear and free to all. It would glow from the inside.

And so would you and I.

Suppose that we were animate beings too. Suppose that we were sentient, that we had feelings, that we were connected by those feeling to the world and to the stars.

Then we’d all feel the pure enjoyment of our feet standing on the ground.

−me strauss Letting me be

Human Be-ing

People are the most interesting species. We take ourselves so seriously. We work hard. We work at playing. We work to find balance by adding more activities onto our calendars, rather than taking some out to breathe.

We’re not very good at just being.

Sitting under the white oak tree on the river back in my back yard, I can look up through the leaves to see the sky.

That’s the epitome of just being alive. I did that a lot when I was a kid. I want to do that now.

I’m figuring out how to carry that tree with me. I keep it in my mind and pull it out when I feel like it. That tree is wise. It knows all about just being a tree. It knows about be-ing.

I’m going to learn from my childhood tree. I'll become a human be-ing again.

−me strauss Letting me be

I Have Ideas

When I was in school, it was weird and unpopular to think outside of the box, along the seashore. But there I was.

It’s not something I learned to do. It’s how I came to the world.

Much like a left-handed kid learns to use right-handed scissors, I learned to figure out how other kids think. I learned to observe so that I could understand them. Knowing that was a survival skill for me. For them, the reverse was a gesture of friendship.

That was then.

In school it’s weird not to think like everyone else.In society, outside-of-the-box thinking is a prized commodity. . . . So long as you don’t do too much of it.

My experience of school, both as a student and as a teacher was not, in the most primary sense, geared toward developing new ideas. It was centered around teaching and learning what had already been done, without taking that next step to challenge the past. We rarely had time to talk about how it might have been done differently . . . or better.

Now the power of ideas is a strange and mystical.

People love ideas, but they somehow fear them. Ideas shift the balance of power. If you have one and I don’t, then you might gain control. People might seek you out. I might be pushed aside.

It’s sad we didn't spend more time making up new and exciting ideas in school. Then we wouldn’t fear ideas now. Then everyone would know how to have them.

I have ideas.

I have ideas about ideas.

I can imagine.

Ideas are the joy of thinking.

−me strauss Letting me strauss

Postponed Engagements

When I have plans with a friend, and then something changes, I often feel badly about telling her that I can’t make it. I love my friends, and I love to be with them. I don’t like it when something comes between me and them. I hesitate. I wonder. I try to rearrange things. I work my way up to telling her what happened and why I can’t make it.

Then, I find out that my change works out better for her. She was faced with a choice that now she doesn’t have to make.

It happens so often. It seems more than coincidence. A change for one of us works out best for the both of us.

I’ve started to face such situations knowing that we’ll both end up in fine shape.

Somehow in some way the stars take care of us.

Even if it’s not so, it’s an awfully nice feeling.

That’s my outlook on postponed engagements.

−me strauss Letting me be

25 Words: Good-bye

25 Wds
Sometimes good-bye
is more than melancholy.
Sometimes good-bye
is the only way to know
how important someone has been
to the story of your life.

−me strauss Letting me be

Dancing the Truth of it

My mother said she sent me to dance because she thought I was clumsy as a child. She sent me to dance when I was three-and-a-half years old. I wonder whether the reason came before or after she sent me?

I’m certain I needed to go. I wish I was still going. In my life then and now dancing is something I’ll always need.

I learned to love music, to let it move me. I learned to get out of my head and into my soul. I found how to think with all parts of my body.

Now when I want to know whether the truth stands before me, I look inside, breathe deeply, and carry the thought through me. Down, down, it goes through my chest, hips to my feet asking the question. It waits there a moment. On the way up, up, it passes my knees, my waist and shoulders, taking in the answer and returning it to my head.

I learned to stretch myself well out into my fingers and toes. I can feel the truth with every cell I am. I learned that when I was half as tall and had not decided about how truth or learning was supposed to work yet.

Dancing gives me something other folks search out, explore, even yearn and pine for. I leave my head. I get to go inside and wander. I can spill through like light, slide through me like water, slip out of me, taking in everything indiscriminately. I touch the universe dancing the truth of it.

Maybe that’s why I walk, dance really, or listen to music when I write.

−me strauss Letting me be

Millions and People

Six of us were at a mandatory business birthday lunch. I was being rather quiet because at least two of the six of us weren’t really in love with me. I think they sensed that I knew their business style harkened from junior high school relationships. These two needed their territory to be “in and cool.” They had decided that I needed to be the center of attention at all times in all places. I wanted them to know that I could easily sit back and be in the audience.

The question came up in conversation, “What would you do if you suddenly got millions of dollars?” Everyone answered in turn and everyone talked about personal change not ways to save the world. When my turn came, I quietly said, “I’d get a chauffer to drive me to work in a cool car when I didn’t feel like driving myself, and I would hire a person to run all of my errands − take the dry cleaning, pick up things I need, do the grocery shopping.”

One of the two said, “Oh, of course, you’d keep working. That sounds just like you. I should have expected that.” She was being totally honest.

I said, “Yes, I think I would. I’m not sure I would like to spend all of my time with people who don’t have to work for a living.”

The conversation moved on and finally, the lunch was over. I managed to maintain my quiet state for most of it.

I reflect on that answer and my life then. I think now that answer was a self-centered one. It was about making the most of my brain power, seeing what I could do with what I had to work with, finding how far I might go if I tried to go far. It wasn’t about people. It was about what I got from work.

Now I think my answer would be a different one. I would spend time and money to visit the friends I don’t see often enough. When I needed to work I would help people with their work without charging them. I’d become an angel investor, so that I could say that name every now and then.

When we left that lunch, those two asked whether I was sick because I didn’t talk very much. I felt like I couldn’t win with them. I had moved out of the limelight, and they assumed I was sick. But in their own way they had picked up that my focus was off.

Maybe they knew was I wasn’t valuing people as much as I valued work.

That would explain her response to what I said. That would explain a lot of things.

It’s probably good that I didn’t win millions then. I think it would be fine if I won it now.

−me strauss Letting me be

A Son

To have a boy, a son, a special gift I was with tonight. How can I explain the wisdom I am filled with having been with such a person as this one who is my son?

Children are put on earth to humble their parents. This one has been doing this for ages. I hear his voice and I am overtaken by the fact that I cannot out think what he is saying.

He is proof that God is in his heaven, and angels are everywhere.

−me strauss Letting me be

Business Meetings

I have always assumed that I'm supposed to like the people that I work with and the people I work for. It has had an amazing impact on my behavior. I really had no idea. In the strangest way that hidden assumption has lead to approval seeking actions.

It never crossed my mind that people might be operating on a premise other than that.

Until this morning. This morning, while considering a meeting I had, I thought of whether the person liked me and then, I thought it really didn't matter. The project was scheduled. This was the call I'd asked for to get his opening input. I'd ask the questions to get the information I needed.

Suddenly a wealth, a flood of knowledge, came washing over me. No wonder I had trouble beginning new business relationships. That's what I should have been doing all along, talking
business plain and simple, direct.

It was an interesting fruitful conversation. I’m a little stunned at how professional I felt.

I had been getting in my own way all of these years. What the heck had I been thinking?

−me strauss Letting me be

25 Words Time and Money

25 Wds

They say time is money.
Time is sunshine, memories.
Time is love, family.
I stopped thinking time is money
I am nicer,
richer and poorer.

−me strauss Letting me be.

Baseball in the Grass

n my backyard there was so much grass it could cover 3 acres or more. My brother took hours to mow it while I sat on the riverbank under the white oak tree watching. He’d mow in the shape of a baseball diamond first − even though he wasn’t supposed to, my mom didn’t like that. She said it would ruin the grass. He did it because entertaining me was the only entertainment he had when he was doing that. Then he would STOP.

He’d play baseball in the grass. By himself he would act out an entire baseball game for me. He’d be Babe Ruth and Yogi Berra and all of these baseball names I’d only heard of because he was 15 and knew such things, and I was only 7.

His tale would get bigger and bigger each time he mowed that grass. I swear that Babe Ruth made the Hall of Fame 44 times that summer by my brother’s telling alone. He went there via super fly balls over the O’Malley’s House and once through Rose and Elmer’s broken garage door.

It was a good thing my brother was only telling the story and acting it out for me. Most times he used props he ended up in the Emergency Room. That inevitably meant stitches for sure.

All this time I thought I got all of my stories from my dad. Now I think I might have had one other source.

Did I tell you how Babe hit the flyer that sailed into Mrs. Capitani’s bedroom window when she was dressing? Now there’s a story that’s unforgettable.

−me strauss Letting me be.

Passing Thoughts

Often I start dreaming before I fall asleep. Pictures form in my head while I’m on the edge of wakefulness. I don’t realize it’s happening. I think I’m still reading the book in my hands. It’s like jet lag without the jet travel, weird loss of brain control. Suddenly my thoughts and pictures are about things that aren’t happening inside the book, or even on my mind as far as I know.

I have no idea where they come from and once I sense them off they go.

These thoughts are mystical, magical, even physical. Often I can feel their touch, hear words being said. Rarely are they about my day, my life, my family, my friends. They’re hardly ever about anything that ever happened to me. They’re intense bits and pieces, disconnected shards of being. Some folks would say they're another reality. Some would call them chemistry. Since I was small I've called them my pre-sleeping dreams.

These days I like to think of them as thoughts escaping from my brain . . . finding their way back into the universe. Maybe my head is too noisy for them, too.

A jailbreak at dawn, we're getting out the thought level, making room for other thoughts in this crowded place. Taking this energy to the universe.

Somehow it all seems possible.

If you catch one of my passing thoughts, don't hold it too long. Send one of yours along with it instead.

−me strauss Letting me be

Bob and the Candle that Would not Go Out

The 65th crayon wrote this when he was only 9 years old.

Bob blew out the candle and went to bed.

The candle would not stay unlit. Bob was confused.

He blew hard to make he go out. He went to sleep.

The candle was unlit again. Bob was disappointed.

He got a hairdryer to blow it out harder. Bob went to sleep again.

The candle did not stay unlit. It woke Bob up. Bob went and got a gun. Bob shot the candle.

Bob couldn't go to sleep then.

It was morning.

−me strauss Letting me be

Social Conformity II

I’ve never been able to do group think. I’ve been the one in the room who saw the elephant and had to talk about it, when the rest of the room had somehow agreed to make it invisible. Somehow I just didn’t know. When they all followed the rules of social conformity, my drumbeat was beating to some other tune. They were debating about pencils and paperclips. I was declaring that customers neededtending. They were deciding what happened 10 years ago. I was drawing pictures about how to get to the future.

One on one the conversations seem to work at a pace that makes sense to me. Make it one more and it could get confusing. More than that, hmmm, I don’t know, quiet might be the best way for me. Not that it was the path I could choose. How do you choose to stay quiet when folks are about to be crushed by an elephant that they can’t see? won’t see? don’t want to see?

Or is the elephant only important to me?

Maybe the group is so strongly tied to their conformity that the elephant has no power to sway them. They’d rather go down with the ship than be first to say, “Hey, there’s an elephant here. What should we do about it?”

Which line is the same height on those cards? To stay with the group most would choose the wrong line. How the rules of group think can rule out the most obvious truths to reinforce the strangest, most unfounded beliefs. The safety of the group is a powerful thing.

It would hurt me physically to choose the lie just to stay with the group.

I am both blessed and cursed at not being able to understand how to enter into the “hive mind” that is social conformity.

−me strauss Letting me be

Knowing What to Do

Where I went to school all of the teachers were beautiful, sang like angels, and had perfect handwriting. I knew just what to do.

Where I went to school we didn’t learn to lead. We learned to be good students and if we fit the mold just right we became exceptional employees. We might rise through the ranks. We might achieve a place where we could lead, but that didn’t make us leaders. We never had to forge a path. The path was always there before us. Do this and then do that to get there and you too, can be where I am now.

I was one of those faux leaders. I built companies and made them rich. I thought I knew how to do things, but I didn’t. I only had a piece, only a bit of the picture. No one had taught me how be on my own. No, no, they let me do things alone, but that’s not the same. I didn’t know that. How could I? It looks the same when you’re in a crowd.

When I wanted to fly, to find my way, I didn’t know how. I was confused. I looked in the mirror and didn’t know who to see. Where was the independent leader? When I wanted to walk my own path I sought someone. I kept hoping, reaching out for a hand, for someone to show me what to do. I’d become a child again. I wanted to go to grownup school.

I had to face my fears, my lack of confidence, my lack of money . . . alone. It would have been easier, if there were lessons on such things.

Now I must be ready because a big breeze has blown through my life bringing a world of teachers. Everywhere I look are people lending a hand, offering help. Folks are pointing out the way to go. The sun is shining down a path.

The daisies are smiling again like they did when I was a little girl going to school . . . and all of the teachers were beautiful, sang like angels and had perfect handwriting. I know just what to do.

−me strauss Letting me be

Raining Down Feeling

Rain. I like hearing it. It’s a shimmering sound, especially after the heat that’s been pressing on us, pushing on us, pulling us down. I like the softness that rain seems to make around this building I’m in. It’s cooling things down. It’s clearing the air.

Rain with the thunder over the lake. It reminds me of nature, especially after I’ve had a long day of computers and telephones, over the Internet, over the headphones, overwhelming me, making me wish I was alone. I look out the window and see the lake through the mist. It’s knowing that something is bigger than me. It’s knowing that I don’t have to do anything to make it work as it should.

Rain soft on the windows. It’s tiny droplets, especially those that seem to stop first to look in. Then they are running down, sliding down, tracing weird pathways on the glass for me. It’s a relief to see nature entertaining so.

Rain puts on a show that makes me rest easy. This raining down feeling brings me up.

−me strauss Letting me be

21

August 2, twenty-one years ago, a boy was born. We knew each other immediately. The conversation had started months before. It was rigorous, intelligent, and heartfelt from the first moment.

I suppose I had wondered before that day what it might be like to be a mother, but it wasn’t until that night that I knew for sure. I gave my life to that boy in the most literal sense. I wasn’t there every minute nor was I the mother that he might have ordered. But he is the child of stardust far beyond what I could have imagined, dreamed up, or conjured.

He holds my heart in his eyes. He keeps my soul inside his voice. I grew up watching his progress and found myself as I saw him learn to fly.

His hurts are my tears. His joys are so much less than he deserves. His gifts are a wonder. He doesn’t know how fond people are of him, how they miss him when he leaves a room. He shines so brightly. Folks can’t help but follow his light, can’t help but think about what’s missing when he’s not there.

He is my sun, my stars, my sky. I was with him at the beginning. I will be there until the end.

On August 2, a boy was born. On August 2, a man now stands. Happy birthday, sweet son of mine.

−me strauss Letting me be

My Pillow

Let me tell you about my very own pillow. It sits at the top of my bed near my book and waits for me all day long until I come back at night. It doesn’t move. It doesn’t complain or worry. It just waits until I show up in whatever state I’m in. Whether I’m delighted or filled with anxiety, even when I’m pressed flat with stress wondering why bad times have chosen me, my pillow is there waiting for me. It’s soft. It’s comforting. It’s mine alone. It’s the epitome of all I call home.

When I’ve been gone for days on end. My head can’t wait to make contact with my pillow again.

It’s an attachment I allow myself. Home isn’t where I hang my hat. It’s where I keep my pillow.

−me strauss Letting me be