25 Wds: Without a Child

25 Words or Less

I've learned from my son
is to face my humility for the child I was
and to admire the humanity of the parents I had.

—me strauss Letting me be

Scatterlings and Seers 2

Once there was a little girl with eyes that see deeply. She could see many things, deep things. She could see when people hurt and make them feel better. She lived in a cabin in the woods with the other scatterlings and seers. They would gather together and tell stories in the woods.

One day the little girl went to where they gathered and the other scatterlings were nowhere. She couldn't see them. She couldn't see anything. She wondered if she had lost her gift, or if they had lost track of her. Oh how sorely she missed them. They had become a part of her. She had thought that she was part of them.

Then she saw a tiny bug crawl up the stem of the smallest flower. It made her think that life was going along the way it should.

And sure enough the next time she went to where they gathered, a campfire roared and all of the scatterlings were there. They greeted her and smiled. Her face was like a flower to see them. She wanted to tell them how she had missed them, but instead she sang and danced.

Once there was a little girl with eyes that could see deeply. She could see more, more and different things than other people see. She could see at the cellular level. She could see how people were feeling and what they were thinking. She could see their thoughts in just a word; see what they would do by standing near them. Being just a little girl she didn’t know that others couldn’t do this. She knew only that it was a way to help people.

She often helped people. Sometimes she helped them by singing and dancing and not saying anything. Or maybe that was the way she helped herself, because it really did make her feel better,

—me strauss Letting me be

Tulips and New Love Every Spring

The tulips are out by the Day School. They’re standing tall in front of every landmark house on Hawthorne Street. Some are red and yellow in new sod. Some are white and scattered randomly. They’ve even made their presence known in front of my very own building.

Tulips and sunshine change everything.

People who, one week ago, passed me on the sidewalk without smiling, are saying bright hellos to me. Tulips show up like new love every spring.

Tulip. New love. They even sound the same.

Good things−sunshine, tulips, and new love every spring.

−me strauss Letting me be

Without Words

Most of the time that I knew her, she was sitting in a chair. She was then as tall as I am now, and as thin. I think of that often. How strong the genes must be to have gone from her to him to me.

She had no English, no words that were mine. I had to learn ones that were hers. I was a tiny child. It was a game to me. I didn’t know how serious it was, how serious it must have been for her. For her, there was only one of me, and for me, there was only one of her.

Still we communicated. We must have. We had our hands and our faces. And we laughed. I remember that. I remember laughing a lot. She laughed easily. So did I.

I remember the laughing because she had a way of smiling with her entire body. When she laughed it shook every cell and though she didn’t move, you could feel the vibration. It was a silent sound wave, a heat wave, a wave of joy passing through her being. Hers was an old and wise spirit, with the bluest eyes, like the ocean waters by a white sandy beach clearly lit by the Caribbean sun.

It’s amazing how I lost every word of Italian when I lost her.

But I kept every feeling, every thought passed between us packaged with love.

Her name was Liza. My father was her son.

−me strauss Letting me be

The Two Meanest Things

The two meanest things I was working on are done. They were mean in the way only words badly used can be. They pulled at my brain trying it, tying it into knots, turning it round and round, because thoughts were not well thought. I had to stop and go back time and time and again . . . and again.

There was no music to be found in the words.

Now they are gone, and I’m free to sing.

Under, over, around, and through, in the mysteries, melodies of the music, of waltzing words again. Life is good when words are allowed to do what words are supposed to do.

Make sense.

Maybe I'll dance instead.

--me strauss Letting me be

What if WE Go the Way of the Old Country Store?

One of my earliest blogging memories is of discovering Unburned Pieces of The Mind by Scot Cunningham. I read a piece he wrote called A Mid-August Stroll. It moved me to write this comment before I left.

Thanks Scot, for the clarity, thought, and thoughtfulness in your writing. The further I read the more comfortable I became easing myself into your day. Enjoy the walk. Hope it gives you what your writing gave me.

That night at friend's house, I pulled up Scot's piece and we read it together. She had the same reaction to his writing I did.

Scot came over a few days later to find out about the stranger that had left a comment on his blog. He left me words I've quoted quite often since.

I'm beginning to find that having a blog is akin to having a village store.You have the regulars that stop in on a regular basis to get their usual wares
and to catch up on anything new. And then there's the new person in town who stops in for a look see. The new person might get a couple of the regulars curious to the point where one asks, "Who's that." To which the reply is, "Don't know, someone passing through I guess." As for my blog, I'm glad you stopped by to have a read and for your kind response.

Since you're a newcomer, I decided to check out your blog, and I find I'm very pleasantly surprised with both your content and your craftsmanship. I like personal narratives, especially when they're well written. "Trusting and Believing" reminded me of the many conversations I used to have with my grandmother. Without "Hope" and "Joy," as your essay so eloquently demontrates,we lose our "connection to humanity." Your last paragraph is especially poignant and makes that connection self-evident without being contrived. Beautifully done. I think I might find myself becoming a regular. As such I have linked your site to mine.

Thanks again for visiting, Scot.

So began one friendship which is now many friendships in common. We're a community—people that my heart knows are intertwined as much as any in the brick and mortar world might be.

I've been enjoying this community so much I've hardly paid attention to what's been happening about the Internet in the real world. I guess I figured that I wasn't hurting anyone, why would anyone want to hurt me?

That kind of thinking has gotten me in trouble before. I'm a little old to stop being Pollyanna now, but I can pay attention to what my reasoning tells me.

I don't pick causes or argue my views to others much. I figure folks have their own. They don't need mine. Still I value what I just described so highly that I cannot stay quiet now.

So hear me whisper this. Some folks don't care about country stores and communities. They care about pipelines that carry bits and bytes and how much they can charge for that service.

What worries me is that, while we're sitting in our country stores and around our campfires, they're fighting to make laws to own the Internet.

I wrote about it on my brainy blog, in an article called, How Do You Tell People Who Won't Be Told? I was including myself in the title. . . .

Would you read what I read today by a man named Jeff Pulver? He's running a contest for ideas to help make people aware. Here are the rules. Then if you could pass any part of this on . . .

I really like our country stores a lot. My life would be less without all of you.

—me strauss Letting me be

My Place to Stand

I’ve never been paranoid. That requires a sureness of thinking about such things that I don’t have. Instead, I’ve been afraid−afraid that people weren’t telling me something I should know, afraid that they might be spending time while waiting for something better to do.

It’s an interesting juxtaposition of confidence and insecurity that makes a writer. Both have to be there. Without one the words would never make it together. Without the other writing would come second to deciding who would play each role when the novel became a movie.

The fear comes from the insecurity. The lack of paranoia come from the confidence.
When my life’s on concrete, I wrap the two of them−insecurity and confidence in a blanket of hope. I set them gently in the arms of faith and love and carry them with me as my shield and my sword.

But when my life is on sand . . . when my life is on the shifting sand the blanket falls away and I find myself fearing that this writer’s intelligence could be following a foolish heart. The shield of insecurity melts over things. The sword of my confidence bends at the not being certain.

I know how to give the other guy a place to stand.

Will I ever know how to give myself one that’s solid and sure?

−me strauss Letting me be

When I Was Late for Dinner

One day I was riding my bike home from the Jankowski’s. FAST. I was five minutes late for dinner. Late wasn’t a good idea. With my mom, late was a matter of principle.

Like my son, my mom had a way with words. When I was late, words she chose didn’t always make sense to me.

Once, when I was older I was late. She said, “If I was hanging by my thumbs for that five minutes you weren’t here, I’d be dead by now.” I still have this picture in my head of my mother in the basement hanging from the plastic indoor clothesline from her thumbs . . . Exactly who put her put there or why, I can’t say. How five minutes in that position caused death, I can’t explain either. I can say that I didn’t argue the point with my mother then, or ask her about it later.

On this day, I was riding my bike a block and a half home. FAST. I was seven and I already knew about the pattern. I was telling myself.

Every time I expect Mom to be mad she isn’t−it’s when I don’t expect her to be that she is. Please let it be true this time. Please let it be true this time.

I was pedaling as fast as I could.

I got home. I’m sure I put my bike away exactly where it belonged. I must have. I would never have been so foolish as to push my luck on that. That would have sunk my prayers for sure. I walked steely stiff, but swiftly around the sidwalk to the back door and into the kitchen. I got myself busy setting the table for dinner.

My mom was fine. The pattern held. I could finally breathe.

The pattern makes sense to me. I can almost argue how my behavior made it real.

I’m still trying to figure out where that thumb thing came from.

−me strauss Letting me be

Star Memory

I wish upon this star
I’m thinking
of the stuff we share
−people and stars−
cosmic dust
I wonder
would we all
act differently
If only once
we could remember
what it was like
to be inside
the universe
−part of a star.
−me strauss Letting me strauss

New Mown Grass in Spring

Sometimes when we were little, Mr. Brunick would take a while before he’d get around to mowing his back lawn. The grass would grow a little higher than it probably should, but my friend, Craig, and I didn’t mind. We’d be glad, in fact, especially the first time it happened early in the spring.

When Mr. Brunick finally did mow the grass, he never used a bagger. He let the long blades fly up through the air, out the side of the mower, only to float back down to cover the ground after him. If we were lucky, we’d be watching from up on the hill by my back door. We’d be watching, waiting really, waiting for Mr. Brunick to be done with the mower. He always mowed early in the morning, which worked out perfectly for us.

That would be the only time we saw Mr. Brunick, when he had the mower out. When he was done, he’d put the mower in the garage and go inside his house. We’d not see him for two or three weeks when he decided to mow his lawn again.

Craig and I would grab a snack from my Mom’s kitchen and start down the cement stairs outside my back door. We’d steal across the vacant lot beneath the sledding hill covered with wild violets across the street from the white house where no one seemed to live. We’d keep watch that no interlopers from the river spotted us. We’d head straight for the oak tree at the edge of Mr. Brunick’s property, next to the violet covered sledding hill.

Craig would climb the tree and sit in it. I would find a soft spot under the tree and sit on it. I sat in the tree once or twice, but I thought the view next to the violets was sweeter. He’d swing his legs and we’d talk about what we’d do if we had all of the money in the world and other important stuff. We’d make up stories about our neighbors, especially all of the ones we never seemed to see much.

Then Craig would come down and the real event would begin. We would lie back and savor the wondrous feeling and flavor of being in an inch of long cut grass that was soft as a feather bed. We’d look up through trees and practice vaporizing clouds by thinking them into oblivion. First we’d tell each other what we saw. Then we’d explode it and laugh.

Then it would happen. A handful of grass would land on me. Then one would land on him. A full out grass fight would be in progress, complete with laughter and such lightness−light as the grass was flying from the mower, flying from his hand to my hair. Ah yeah, it was light and soft and sweet as the look in my eyes I feel right now seeing the picture of the two of us, throwing fresh cut spring grass through the air.

My mom said it was amazing that a kid could get grass stains in as many places as I did. I told her it was nothing. Huh! She should have seen the other guy.

I think she shook my pants out for a month.

So know this, the next time that you’re looking up through trees. If you’re with a friend you love, on a spring day under Mr. Brunick’s tree, if you’re very, very lucky, you might find yourself feeling lighter, softer, and sweeter than new mown grass in spring.

It’s an unforgettable feeling.

−me strauss Letting me be

Japanese Tea in a Japanese Garden

I’ve never been good at learning things. I’ve never really had to be. I’ve just been able to pick things up as I go along, sort of figure them out on my own and keep moving on. So when the occasion comes when I have to learn something, I want to do it on my own. I don’t really like people watching me.

When I learned to sew I couldn’t start with the easy thing. I had to start with a long-sleeved, slippery satin, buttoned blouse with an inset collar. It was the hardest thing. There are no baby steps for this girl. I get bored by them and frustrated that I’m not moving faster, faster, faster. I should be able to do this. I’m the one that picks things up easily. I’m surprised I didn’t go for a tailored, velvet overcoat with a zip-in satin lining.

Being able to do so many things without having to learn them has a downside a big as barn. It means I didn’t learn how to learn. So I’ve found ways to avoid doing things that I didn’t want to do for the first time when people would be there to watch me doing them. I didn’t rollerblade in Florida with Wendy. I didn’t order food in Bologna when I was feeling a little bit hungry. I didn’t go to the bathroom in the woods until I was over 40 and my best friend said it was the only choice for the next four hours. Even then I made her demonstrate.

Slowly though I’m outgrowing this silly, childish trait.

I want to go to a Japanese garden and learn the tea ceremony.

Yeah, in some ways it’s taking on that tailored, velvet overcoat with a zip-in satin lining again, except there’s no way I can do that alone. I would have to have help every step of the way to even get started. That’s the part I like. Japanese tea in a Japanese garden and me finally kicking back to admit that I have to learn something from somebody else.

That’s freedom, discipline, relaxation, and serenity.

−me strauss Letting me be.

When I Tell Stories

Each morning at 8:00 my dad got up after about four hours sleep. He would go to work. What he did there, he never said. As I grew up I sort of pieced it together. He opened the back door to let in the homeless man who helped with the clean up from the night before while my dad readied the barroom and the kitchen and talked to those folks and farmers who for one reason or another were in a redneck saloon before the sun had hit midday. He also met with the typical sales reps and vendors that venture forth to small town taverns and saloons.

He talked the same to every person who came in. He made each one welcome. He always said, “You’re only a stranger once.” His saloon was his corner store. It was his social life. He went there every day without fail, took a nap, and went back at night.

When I was still small, around 11:00, he’d come home to pick me up. I’d get to go with him while he went on errands, leaving a bartender in charge. We’d go to the bank, the grocery store. Sometimes we’d see his lawyer. Once we even saw the mayor. Everywhere we went it was the same.

“Oh you must be Geno’s daughter.”

“You must be the apple of his eye.”

They’d smile and talk about how smart I was, about my dancing, about how much I looked like him. He wasn’t a talkative man by nature, but he always had stories about me for them. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was learning some important things by watching. I was also seeing important things too. Maybe he told stories so they wouldn’t know that he didn't like to talk.

These people loved my dad as much as I did. You could see it in their eyes. That made me sort of like a princess, because he surely was a king to them. Funny, with my dad, I didn’t mind them talking about me. With my dad I wasn’t shy. . . .

Every day I get up, after four hours sleep. I go to my computer. I don’t talk much about what I do there. I suppose one day my son will piece it together. It’s my corner store. It’s my social life. I meet up with and talk to folks and friends who for whatever reason are online before the sun has hit midday. I come here every day without fail, take a nap, and come back at night. I hope he sees it the same way I saw what my dad did−that folks who pay a visit as a stranger always leave as a friend.

It’s nice to think that my dad and I might be a lot alike.

Come on. I’ll tell you a story. When I tell stories I don’t feel shy.

−me strauss Letting me be

One Word Can Do So Much

I know this word that is magic. It can change a life that has lost it’s way. It can heal a soul that’s damaged, soften one that’s hard with anger, make light a soul weighted with remorse.

It’s a word that can fill a heart with grace, spreading joy and warm feelings in its wake. Kindness comes from knowing it. It calms the storm of any turmoil, turns around trying times. It’s not a foreign word in any language. It’s as usual as a smile−not hard to say or spell.

Even children know the magic word forgiveness.

Why have so many grown-ups forgotten it?

−me strauss Letting me be

In Mom's Space

It seems that everyone in my family growing up had at least one place where he or she held court. A space that was sacrosanct, no trespass. Tacit agreement said squatters’ rights held here. That’s what comes, perhaps, of a family of individuals.

My dad had my parents’ room whenever he came home for a nap. My oldest brother had my brothers’ bedroom for reading book by the light through the east-facing window. I had the basement and a room of my own. My other brother had the whole outdoors−no room could hold him. My mom had the living room and the kitchen. Boy, did she have the kitchen.

My mom had the kitchen in the way that a queen has a throne and the kingdom, in the way that I have my hands, in the way that other folks have their names and their homes. She didn’t just have it. She owned it. It was her as if she built it and gave birth to it. We could visit. We weren’t confused who ruled the room. From floor to ceiling, left to right, north to south, east to west, the letters M-O-M were everywhere. You could feel air change when you walked into the room.

Or maybe it was hearing, “Out. Or I’ll put you to work,” regularly that made it seem that way.

No one thought to sit in her chair. Even friends who had never been in the room gravitated away from that chair. Their was a force field around it.

There were two ovens clearly meant for one person whose name sounded much like God’s and needed one less letter. She didn’t love to cook like some moms do. That didn’t matter. Even Dad, who was 13 years older and loved to cook, didn’t go near a pan in that kitchen. He knew better.

In Mom’s space everything ran as it should. People were entertained. Cookies were baked. Meals were served. We three “automatic dishwashers” worked listening to the radio while top 40 music played. Beautiful wood slat shutters hung over the two windows over the two sinks.
There was never a lack for anything you might need to eat. It was a small grocery store. I don’t remember ever having an Old Mother Hubbard moment in that space−never once went to the cupboard to find we were out of anything. Looking back, it seems amazing, then again not.

Every Saturday morning at sunrise, Mom would make a list in the same order as the products sat in the aisles of her market. Then she’d leave the house just in time to there when the store opened. Saturday, it would be, because that’s when the shelves were stocked. General Mom explained that tactic to me in Kitchen Strategy 101. That might be the closest to the stove she ever let me get.

Maybe it had something to do with Mom having been a kid during the Depression with lots of brothers and sisters and not a lot of food.

When my husband started shopping for our family, I remember once saying, “When I was growing up, we never ran out of bread.” We still joke about how in my Mom’s house we never ran out of bread. We still run out of bread in this house regularly. We can’t quite keep track of it.

Hey, my space is the office and the bedroom. His space is the living room.

We don’t keep the bread in either place.

I had a sandwich tonight. It made me think of Mom.

−me strauss Letting me be

The Trick of the Teeter-Totter

My younger, older brother thought it was his role to teach me about people. He thought like my mother−that without a little more armor I didn’t stand a chance against the world. It was sure to eat me up. He often took it upon himself to teach me how to navigate with smarts. He was a cool kid and clever. I was a little girl without guile.

My big brother introduced me to the teeter-totter. Where I come from, we never called it a seesaw, except at school. The trick of the teeter-totter is know that all of the power lies not at the top, but at the bottom.

When I first began to ride the teeter-totter with my younger, older brother, I didn’t know the trick of the teeter-totter. He, of course, being a big brother got me in the air and left me up there. I was stuck with my legs hanging, shoes almost falling off.

“So kid, tell me. What will you do to get me to let you down?”

“Mikey, I don’t like this. Let me down now.”

“I could just get up and walk away. You’d come down, but it’d be crashing.”

“I want to get down. Please, let me down now. Don’t crash me. I want to get down. You’re scaring me, Mikey.”

He’d stand a bit, just to show me how it might be.

I was scared for real. He didn’t understand that. I wasn’t born with his take a risk gene. I really had a fear of heights and I didn’t like this game one bit. He was playing, at my end he’d have been having fun. He boasted 200 stitches by age seven. I think I’ll have seven stitches by the time I’m 200. We’re just totally different about what we think is fun, especially when there’s physical risk involved.

The teeter-totter is about the balance of two forces. Those two forces must be balanced and working coordinately. That’s the part that I didn’t know going in. I’d entered into a two-way bargain that relied on an equal partnership. I was supposed to hold my end. He was supposed to hold his. If one guy took advantage of the rules I the other guy ended up a prisoner in the air. That’s a risky thing for a little kid with a risk taking big brother, especially one who likes to make sure that she doesn’t walk into trouble.

“So, what will you give me to let you down?”

“Quit it. I want to get down. Right now.” I started crying.

“Okay, kid. Here you go. But watch out now for big kids who are meaner than me. You know, kid, you turn tears on like a faucet.”

You can’t find teeter-totters on playgrounds anymore. I couldn’t even find a good picture of one.

I completely understand why. I don’t really miss ’em.

−me strauss Letting me strauss

Linguists for the 21st Century: Astrowonk

An Exercise in Word Coinage for Valleywag

astrowonk: v. transitive, [etymology taken from the sound Charlie Brown's mother used to make] used to refer to loud boasting of the most obnoxious sort by humans resembling the posterior part of the human form when they over state their own value or their deeds. Other forms: astrowonking; astrowonked; n. astrowonker; n.

astrowonkerkind: n. one such young human, considered a prodigy, who is so so naturally talented at astrowonking that the hype and PR spew from his or her astrohole is immediately believed and becomes front page news at Gawker.

astrowonkcoon: astrowonkin who has received venture capitalism to start a web 2.0 business that he will ignore so that he can use the money to travel the world and mess around with astrowonkettes

astrowonkette: bride to be of an astrowonk. who often asks , "Honey do these pants make my posterior look astronomical?"

—me strauss Letting me be

Letting me be

I made this place with spirit
a big back yard of forever
up a rivierbank under a white, oak tree
a place to sit, to think, to wonder
to be alone, to be a philosopher
no cell phones, no computers,
just sky and imagination
thoughts and feelings
and a chance for anybody
who wants to just be

It doesn't matter if I see them
if they see me
we're rocks
we're grass
we're fireflies
we're flowers
we're stars
we're the underside of leaves
we're bark on the white oak tree
we're together
with our dancing shoes
letting each other be

—me strauss Letting me be

Watercolors

I remember playing in the basement I couldn't have been more than four. Listening to the record player, I’d keep turning the tuning dial, trying to decide which way it should be for me to hear the sound as I should.

The walls were 18-inch ceramic tiles in the most amazing Ethnic colors−magenta, cerise, chartreuse−cold and damp against my hand of baby fat. Where had they come from? They made the basement into a mystical cellar. Dark and mysterious. Later, when I was in college, my mother refinished the basement with light wood paneling and the magic was gone.

But when I was four, I played for hours with watercolors. At that age, I never quite understood their appeal. It puzzled me what other kids saw in them. I seemed to always use too much water. The colors would run into each other. The record player I understood. I’d listen to the music play, and turn the dial again, while I watched the colors run. Every picture that I made faded or turned into something else. I painted one thing. It became another. My images were hard to see in the dim, hideaway light.

The music never stopped playing. I never stopped singing along.

Soon enough I’d swirl my brush a last time in the water, run it across the purple paint, and sign my name. I’d carefully clean the brush in the water and dry for tomorrow when, knowing me, I’d try again.

Then I’d turn the music louder, and I’d dance in the soft, afternoon light like the fairies do, until it was time for me to take my nap.

Looking at watercolors then was like looking back now at the days of my life.

−me strauss Letting me be

Thinking with No Words

We all try to change the world with our words and ideas.

My imagination has been my saving grace and the heart of all my fears. It has carried me out my window through the sky to sit in the cartwheel nebula where I was a color of the universe. I’ve talked with Einstein and had sword fights with Peter Pan before breakfast. I’ve seen my future in my father’s hands on the steering wheel, while the sun was blinding me through the windshield. All I had to do was be near him as a little girl. My imagination did the rest.

I’ve imagined monsters and creepy things that lived in my closet and feared the dark basement in my own house long after I was in college and sleeping there. I was a brave one. I could face my fears. I’d just imagine what I would do if my imagined fate happened to come true. It didn’t make me fearless or fear-less. It just made me not take myself so seriously.

Every now and then someone will do something inconceivable, but that’s another thing. That has to do with principles. I can imagine people who don’t think like me. That takes in a good part of the world. My imagination made room for the idea of folks who have thoughts unlike my own a long time ago. I might not understand them, but I can imagine people who think unlike me.

I can imagine the best and the worst of people in detail−Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Buddha, Jesus, a mother without compassion, corporations without humanity, a friend filled with judgment who thinks he’s holy, a child so abused that she harms herself from self-loathing. These things confound and confuse me, but I can picture them, feel them, walk around them in my mind.

I can find words to describe how they look, how I feel about them, and why each of them inspires and frees me or infuriates and frightens me. I can form images of the people, their lives, their ideas, what moved them and what they touched, what they might have said.

People born deaf have no words. If they learn sign that’s the language of how they think.

I think in colors, then pictures, then in words. . . . Still . . .

A mind without words . . . like a universe without sound . . . or a vacuum−a vacuum, no air. I know the words. I can understand the ideas.

I’m not sure I can imagine thinking with no words.

Silence. Isolation. Peace. Perception. Reality. Self-Actualization. Relationships. Loneliness. Joy. Beauty. Love. Friendship. Belonging. Hunger. Darkness. Me.

Each is a word and an idea.

What would I be without them?

−me strauss Letting me strauss

The Smartest Girl in the Room

No one chooses to be who they are. At least I know I didn’t. I don’t think that even if we could, we would have the slightest clue how to do it. Too many episodes of the Twilight Zone and the Outer Limits have convinced me that there is no easy way to go.

Every rainbow needs rain.

I didn’t ask to be the smartest girl in the room. For the longest time, I didn’t even know I was. Folks around me were pretty good at keeping that kind of thing from me. I don’t know if that was a good thing or not. All I knew at the time was that I was significantly different. In a world filled with different, I was more different than the rest, and I didn’t know why. I just knew that it was so. There wasn’t much I could do about it. I was just a kid. I imagine lots of kids had the same kind of feelings as I did, for their own kind of reasons.

Every flower needs the dirt.

I knew things about people. I knew their feelings and what they thought. I was sure they could know the same things about me, but they didn’t choose to. It never crossed my mind that they couldn’t do or see what I could do. I just thought they didn’t want to. That I wasn’t worth the trouble. I didn’t know why. I just thought it was so. Now I know they can’t. Other kids had misconceptions too. I know that. Other kids had real problems--problems that could not be overlooked, pushed aside, or forgotten. My only problem was that my brain could process more information at times than a child’s mind can understand.

I didn’t know how to talk about the things that other kids talked about. I knew how to dance and do math and write poetry. I think I was terribly intense. It was lonely talking to myself. I never learned a lot of the things that kids are supposed to learn by talking to each other. All I wanted to do was be good and not ever hurt anyone’s feelings.

Every star needs the night.

I wonder now if I could give back some of that smart and live my life without it, would I do it? I can’t say that I would. It’s a part of me that I would surely miss. On some days, it was all that I had.

I was the smartest girl in the room.

I guess it took me some time to be okay with that.

−me strauss Letting me be

Gratitude

I write some words. They are the truth that stretches from my being up through my heart. I use my head and fingers only to get them down where I can see them. I look at them in wonder. I’ve been able to make something that has so much meaning. I tinker with it gently.

I read it. I think about it. I wonder more about this gift I have to touch my feelings, to take them from my heart, to hold them in my hands and softly lay them on the page where anyone who wants can see them.

I don’t like people looking at me.

Why do I have no fear of letting them see my feelings?

A reader comes to leave a comment. The comment says

I’ve heard your words. I’ve heard the heart behind them. I read the feelings in the white space around them. I know the music of the language that you’re hearing. I know you from your words. I understand.

Then I understand too. I am a writer. I do it for the feeling that that comment brings.

Gratitude.

We all reach to understand and be understood in the way that we know how.

−me strauss Letting me be

The Power of a Mind

As time goes by I find my self wanting to slow down a bit. Take my life like a nice cognac one sip at a time. I wake in the morning and stretch myself into my head. Not stretching to reach for something, stretching to find a place that feels right. Right place, right time.

Last summer I discovered the beauty of breathing room. This spring I am seeing the light of finding space between breaths, yawning with the luxury of little bits of time, stopping myself before I run off to do something too fast. It’s exciting to learn how to turn off the fast forward switch, to have the time to wonder in the white space between words. I reach for a thing to do, and then I stop myself. Is this something that needs doing now, or should I finish what I’m already doing first?

What an amazing thing to do one thing at a time is!

I’ve always been something at knowing what others were thinking.

Now, I’m holding thoughts and following them to logical conclusions. What was once a fire hose loose on the floor is now like the sweet, still waters of a Japanese garden all my own. No more distractions or self-conscious diversions here. I’m taking the time to enjoy wandering through my thoughts, figuring things out, developing an original idea from beginning to end.

In the strangest way, I’m beginning to get my head around the power of my mind.

I have to wonder whether I’ve been running away from it all of my life.

−me strauss Letting me be

I Don't Know

A small state park just outside of my hometown has paths and trees for walking and wandering any time of year. I’m not really one for that kind of stuff, except for every now and then, when I am. It’s usually the first of spring when the walking and wandering happens. I get this feeling that I want to be in the world again. Can’t say exactly what kicks up the wanderlust. I don’t know. I just know something does.

When I was young, I’d usually break out my bicycle and ride to rediscover my neighborhood. The feel of the bike tires on the empty street pavements would keep me going, moving, pushing forward, feeling the world. I’d be looking for little changes that I’d not noticed before. Of course, I didn’t know that, but I would see them−a house that changed colors since the last time I’d passed that way, a tree that had bloomed with tiny white flowers, the sidewalk that was painted pink and white in squares. In fourth grade 21 bricks were missing in the brick road three streets over from where I lived−that was in front of Glenn Weigle’s house only.

I suppose it makes sense that I still get that spring feeling to greet the world again. The surprise is that I found myself in that state park outside the town where I grew up. Why I drove all of the way there I don’t know.

That particular park isn’t one that holds any charm for me. My family never held an event or a picnic there. I think I’d only been there once or twice before−maybe in college with a boy in car. Certainly nothing I remember well. I just can’t say why I went there. I don’t know.

But there I was, walking paths new, yet strangely familiar, as if I’d seen them in some place, some dream before. I was breathing in spring and thinking of nothing. That’s how the spring looking-around ritual works. Then I walked into this magic fairy tale of place. It was wishing well in the middle of a fork in the walking path I was on. So many people I knew had been to this park, and no one had ever mentioned this bit of it, not once. That puzzled me. People usually hear about such things when they’re growing up.

I decided to make friends with this spot. I felt like I had missed knowing it and needed to now.

I sat down by the wishing well to watch the trees grow. It was a good feeling not to worry about anything but watching and seeing. I don’t know where my mind went, but it went somewhere. And I didn’t mind at all, even though it was gone for what must have been quite a while. I enjoyed some sort of Rip Van Winkle rest in time next to that wishing well. I don’t recall making a wish, but I sure remember feeling well. It was as if the sunlight came through trees to see me, the same way it came through my bedroom window when I was a little girl. What’s not to like about spring in a world like that?

Why hadn’t I come to this park before? I don’t know.

All at once I was filled with so much energy, I had to get up. It dawned on me that I hadn’t explored the wishing well. I looked down into the depths. It was dark down there. I said hello and heard my own voice answer back. I asked myself, if I say hello in the forest and I’m the only one to hear . . . Then I asked myself, if I tell a joke in the forest . . . Oh, heck with that I thought, I know I’m here.

I found my way out of the park like I had landed the best job in the universe and won the lottery. It was the fireball of energy someone once said I was. I got in my car and threw in some driving music. I drove all the way home singing along with songs from my college days. I wasn’t ready yet to break the feeling.

When I got home, I called my best friend, Annie. She knows that park better than anyone. I told her what happened there.

She said, “What wishing well?”

I asked her why we’d never gone to that park before.

She said, “I don’t know.”

Next spring, will I find that wishing well again?

That I know. I will.

−me strauss Letting me be

Heart and Soul in Times of Guinevere

Heart and soul . . . I fell in love with you . . .

My heart, a warrior king, being was my prey
Racing, rambling, insistently, incessantly
No quest to pursue, no cause to champion
King Arthur, my heart leading onward
forward in selfish, hugely noble directions
righting the world with thoughts echoing repeating
loudly, softly, on my mind, from my fingers

Heart and soul. . . as any fool might do . . .

My soul, an orphan-waif, talking was living
Watching, wishing, mechanically, pathetically
No warmth to offer, no room no depths
Guinevere, my soul holding counsel
never outward, not above or beyond noble intents
holding the world one-way touch giving
openly, relentlessly pushing needs away

Heart and soul . . . the kiss you stole . . .

My eyes, my sun, seeing was loving
painting, writing, the musical skyline view
Magic and mystery, smoke and mirrors, then you
Gentle wisdom, strength driving soul deep
Lancelot, your eyes standing near waiting
never forward, not in front nor behind, in my path
holding my hand with grace, silence that speaks
kissing away boundaries at break of day.

With that kiss . . .
you won my heart
. . . and my soul.

−me strauss Lettingmebe

Hope Is a Waterfall

Some days my life is so much heat and dust. It’s a Texas day in the sun, digging for hours through the clay just to make room for a tiny flower. It’s the hot Texas sun turning my skin brown, while I mix the sand and loam to make dirt. I don’t even know my face is streaked with brown from wiping my forehead or that I’ve got a blister from pushing the shovel into ground that was fighting back. Those hard-working days go on and on so long that they’re all I know.

Then along comes a breeze . . . and it blows my hair out of my face. I run through the sprinklers and suddenly it starts to rain.

I like the rain. Raindrops sound like music. A storm in the distance looks like a drive-in movie from our back porch. Rain on the window brings back dreams of childhood. Rain cleans the world.

The same cycle happens with my hopes.

Sometimes they feel so dry and grainy, so much so you’d have to get water to make the smallest bit of dust. The desert would be more inviting. It’s a fight for me to just hold on to them at all. Then a drop falls into my heart, and then another, and another. Why they seem to come at once, like rain, I’ll never know. Suddenly, there’s so much. It’s waterfall.

Waterfalls are like a downpour when the sun is shining. They break sunlight into prisms, shooting colors everywhere, as if there might be pots of gold all over the world, just waiting for you and me to find them.

What could be better--ever?

Hope makes the sun shine brighter.

Hope is a waterfall.

−me strauss Letting me be

My Outdoor Cousin

When I go to the restaurant I know, I order the same food. I don’t like having to figure out what I might want again. I don’t like being disappointed when I could have had what I already know I like. When I drive to a place I like to go, I take the route I like, I don’t usually wander. I look forward to the sights I know are coming, and I don’t want to give them up for something that might not be there.

Most folks will tell you I’m not much of an outside person. I like to be near my music and my computer.

But whenever my cousin, Joe, is around here, or I’m around where he is, we always end up outside or in the car going somewhere. Joe is my outdoor cousin.

It started one Saturday afternoon that I was home from college, walking down the street in the town where we both lived. He offered me a ride home. We decided to go out to lunch at the local root beer stand−frozen mug root beer in the car and all. We had such a fine talk that we decided to keep talking. He suggested that we go hiking at the Rock.

I said, “Are you kidding? Who DO you think you’re talking to? I hate the fall winds.”

“Aw C’mon, We’ll keep talking. You’re only home for the weekend.”

He had me there. I did like talking. We drove to Starved Rock State Park and walked out to the cliffs over the river. It was fall. The wind was cold, but the friendship was warm enough to make a difference. The space and the trees make talking so easy that my ears forgot to hurt when the wind rushed through them.

That’s the day Joe and I decided that both of our families were totally crazy. We divorced our parents and our siblings on the spot and started a separate family of our own. Of course, we never told them. We walked, laughing and talking like that for a couple of hours.

Then we went into the fabulous, old park hotel lobby. It was built by depression recovery workers, using giant old logs and stone. We drank hot cider in front of the 8-foot walk through fireplace, on mustard yellow couches under floor lamps with fringed lampshades, the two of us still talking. Sometimes we were quiet. We pretended we were in another country−Luxemburg, or Lithuania, or maybe it was Russia. At one point we walked out the French doors along the back to let the view know that we’d been there.

That was a couple of decades ago, give or take ten years, or maybe it was yesterday.

I’m still not that much of an outdoor person, but whenever the mention of a State Park in the fall comes up, I think for a second of how my ears might hurt, and then I think of my outdoor cousin.
Sometimes the last thing you want to do is the one you’d do again in a second.

−me strauss Letting me be

Like Rain on a Window

I am a very lucky girl. I read and think for a living. I get to wander through thoughts, see where they take me, and watch how people respond to them. I write stories or imagine places and color in details with tiny brushstrokes and wonder whether folks will notice them.

Sometimes I put my heart right out there. Tears form in my eyes. They gather first like drops on a rainy car window, then run fast down through my fingers onto the keys into cyberspace. Those drops are the feelings behind the words that refuse to be separated from what I’m saying. The feelings don’t want the words to stand alone, perhaps to be misunderstood. That’s brave of the feelings. I like that about them. I like that about me.

It’s never boring to write. It’s often trying, testing, and tiring. It’s also always worth getting up each morning to see what adventure I will find. It’s always good to go to bed. I’m always dead, brain-dead tired.

At night, though, at night is my own thinking time. When I think at night, I think about the stars. I think about life. I think about my life, your life, life in general. I think of how people treat people. I think about fairy tales and heroes. I wish there were more of those. I wonder why there isn’t more compassion. I wonder why I don’t do more, see more, learn more. I wonder why I don’t do less.

I think about the promise of a new day tomorrow and a good sleep tonight. Before I sleep at night, I think of how the dark sky is like a blanket over the whole world.

I think of all the children who have no one to tuck them in at night. I ask the sky to tuck them in, and the stars to watch over them.

I wish them all good-night.

One little tear finds its way down to my cheek like rain down a car window, to my pillow.

I blow gently on it so the air can carry it with my feelings to them.

−me strauss Letting me be

Magnetic Signals

For the longest while, I’ve felt like a magnetic field has been around me. Maybe it’s been there all of my life. I used to joke it. I’d say things about my magnetic personality making elevators go, but this past year I’ve actually felt it−felt myself inside of it. It’s been a weird sort of knowing that how I felt was being transmitted, telegraphed through the air, like a boxer’s punch to people I couldn’t see, to folks who didn’t know me, to the stars and to the universe. That all electrons knew when I was on or off.

Hypersensitivity? Imagination.

I could feel it. Right thoughts and the right feelings seemed to make things happen in one way. It was more than how I viewed the world, looking doesn’t make telephones ring, especially not telephones that have calls coming from strangers who can’t possibly know how I’m feeling.

Reason? Fantasy.

I’m not an overage hippie. Still I have to think people can give off brain waves that other people must sense or pick up in some way or another. The universe picks up and transmits waves of all kinds and types. Why not mine? My brain has been working overtime on a problem that has been too big for it. It has to have been offloading some of it. Surely it was sending out a signal to somewhere. Why wouldn’t people be unconsciously receiving that signal and reacting?

I wonder what signals I’m receiving I'm not aware of? Wonder who's receiving the signals I'm sending at this moment?

We could be having whole conversations without even knowing it. Imagine if we were actually listening.

Whoa! We’re a strange species.

Guess that’s what happens when you make people from stardust and give them the power to laugh and love.

−me strauss Letting me be

Easy

I told Meryl how it was to talk to this guy who’d only read my writing, yet he knew me. Well, he was a writer too. I guess he could read between the lines. He talked to me as though he was aware that I had no hidden agenda. That he could take what I said as what I meant. I almost danced with energy as I related the freeing feeling. I was able to be myself without worrying that I was being mistaken, misunderstood, mistrusted. It was as if my brain could come out to play without worrying. Playing is such a good thing.

She said, “Girl, that guy had you figured out and wrapped up with a bow in 20 seconds. That must have been scary.”

“No, it was thrilling and so much fun. I kept saying things like ‘That’s so smart,’ and ‘Whoa, that’s cool.’ It was like being on an equal playing field with someone you can learn a lot from.”

Then I told Duncan about the same thing. To him I added, “He reminded me of you—his voice patterns, the way he spoke to me. It was distracting. I had to stop him to tell him that he reminded me of a dear friend from college.”

“I thought that was just a tumor I have,” Duncan said sweetly.

“Maybe he has a tumor, too.” I threw back.

“No seriously, it’s like he understood that my heart and head are transparent. He helped me when I didn’t know what I meant.”

“That’s good,” Duncan told me. “I’ve seen people fight your lack of guile for the longest time and get really frustrated trying to find a way to change it—or to prove it isn’t so.”

“Hey,” I said, “If they thought they were frustrated, imagine how frustrated I was.”

Sometimes its so hard to be myself, but once in a million times it’s easy.

Easy and fun to be myself. Imagine that.

−me strauss Letting me be

The Essence of Being Alive

Almost since I can remember I’ve been phenomenal at multitasking. I can remember 83 tangents of a conversation while typing a story and answering three questions. At the same time, I might be clicking through a calendar and checking the status of three programs, keeping nine balls in the air, and four plates spinning. I’ll stop to tie my shoes without missing a comma, and I’ll work my way through a novel before I get to the end of my third cup of coffee. Doing any less than that always seemed boring.

I’ve always said it was focus and attention. “All of life,” I would say, “is showing up and paying attention.”

But how much attention can I be paying when I’m mulitasking?

I’m so busy doing. What am I seeing? What am I knowing? How do I have any awareness? I don’t. I’m a robot. Task-oriented, that’s what they call it. Who would think that’s what I would be or what I would even want? I think I want this multitasking to stop.

One thing at a time sounds so much saner. One idea, one pencil, one piece of paper. One thought I can think and wander through and make something of it would be so luxurious. Whoa if I did that, maybe then I’d feel smart again. Maybe then, maybe then I could spell again. Maybe then I would write or type only one word at a time in the right order. I would have thoughts that would open my mind rather than sparks that would make words go flying.

Yes, this is a decision. Drop the balls. Let the plates fall. No more typing and answering questions at the same time. I’m going to look at things and actually see them. When people talk to me, I’m going to actually hear them, not just the words they are saying.

I know that somewhere hidden inside this decision. I will find the essence of being alive.

—me strauss Letting me be