Deep, deep in the Ocean

Some folks don’t like boat rides of any kind. They fear boats and boat rides. No one gave them toy boats to play with as children. No one told them of adventures on the seas. What they heard of boats were facts from history in school. What they remember are statistics of tragedies.

Some folks take boats for fun. They could never be serious about boating. They never take care with any boat they might use or borrow.

Some people enjoy cruise ships. Big hotels on water. They feel like they’re on land when they’re not. Similar people like looking through the glass bottom of a glass-bottom boat. They can see underwater, when they’re not.

Many people are content to stay on top of the water. They see only the surface, light reflecting, waves pounding the shore. Some can see just below the surface. Their eyes follow the light a few feet below. Some can snorkel deep enough to see the colors and colorful fish that live in the water below the boat.

Few want to go deep, deep down, deep in the ocean to know their own soul.

--me strauss Letting me be

The Coffee Cup -- A Metaphor

Almost ten years I looked down as I was writing and wondered at my coffee cup how I could take it for granted. I had thoughts of people and how we often doen't see them. We see their purpose and their usefulness, but not them, not their being.

Now ten years later, I make that mistake less. It's not that I've become such a better person. It's that I've slowed my responses. I've changed some of my habits. I try to do one thing at a time. I've learned my manners all over again. Saying, please and thank you, has an affect on how I feel about myself and the person I talk to.

I listen now. I listen. I've learned that magic happens when I listen. That people show me, tell me wonderful things about themselves. It's as if they wait for someone who values what they say and then, they bring out their gifts and give them freely.

I look at my coffee cup. I used to think it was tool. Now I know it holds what I decide -- a magic sweet as life.

--me strauss Letting me be

No One's Listening

Do you see me? Can you hear me?

I’m here in the noise and the clutter, walking beside you.

Cell phone ring tones. MP3s and DVDs.
YouTube videos talking and singing. I wake up at night. No one is there.

We could sit beneath the old, white oak tree on the riverbank, just you and me.

No one’s listening.

Talking, talking. We’re all talking, while we’re typing at the same time we’re watching the weather report on TV. Music playing on the CD. Headphones, earphones, cell phones.
E.T. phone home.

We could go to the movie together and eat popcorn. You could be with me.

No one’s listening.

I’m hungry. I’m thirsty. I need to catch a plane. Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.
I feel nothing. No one seems to notice.

We could sit in the grass where the flowers grow and have picnic. What do ya’ say?

We’re all talking. No one’s listening.
Even when we’re whispering.

−me strauss Letting me be

After the Rain

After the rain has fallen there is a moment, just a glimpse of a second when all of the world stands perfectly silent, when everything seems to stop.

I hear my heart beat. Heartbeats are the sound of waiting water, collecting from raindrops no longer falling. They’re still in my mind with the thoughts that made them come raining down.

Now that I’m quiet and the air is clearer. I see the world again as it truly is -- filled with delicate beauty and wonder. Nothing is wrong or right, in tune or out of sync. Nothing is upside down.

There is only what happens, like the rain. There is only what is.

The sun shines through the drops making a prism, a rainbow of color that wasn't there only a moment ago.

--me strauss Letting me be

A Wonder

I’ve often thought of how we’re all connected somehow. An invisible thread of silver light as light, thin as air, pulls us like gravity connecting us. It’s the attraction that makes us bump into each other when we’ve gone too, too long without feeling another’s touch, a kind of soul searching, a physical hunger.

Our minds have this, hearts have this. We need to know that we’re not just one, not floating alone in a dark soundless universe. Our souls have this silent sonar turned on to pick up any trace, the slightest move of a kindred spirit that passes near, Should we discover someone who understands, who hears, who knows, the joy is so overwhelming; we’re almost calm with it. Standing and staring, we quietly whisper, “I hope you hear me, when I say this, but . . . you have just made me remember who I am.”

Thank you, thank you. You’re a gift unexpected, − priceless, humbling, inspiring.

For a moment, we’re all of who we are, who we might ever become. The stars wish they could be us.

It’s a wonder.
−me strauss Letting me be

Shining Their Light Back

To look at others and to see them . . .

I see who they are and I want to be them, their goodness shines, that one trait each one has captivates me. She is grace. He is laughter. She is generosity. He is kindness of the closest friend. She is regal and warm. One is paint spattered like life alive on a canvas all showy. The other is calm like the knowing canvas that holds the paint.

He was unconditional love, simple with the strength to be gentle. She was unconditional strength, complex with the love that she fought to hold onto and give away. He is sweet and funny -- a jewel and a gemstone so precious you know it when he's in the room His friends are more than fond of him. They miss him when he's not in the room.

I see each bit; know its' value; take it in; and try to make it my own.

I am a moon child and for so long, I my interactions were a reflection of others’ suns. I’d find the place where I am like they are. I'd make that part of me be who I was when they were around. It was not false. It was almost unscious. At the time, I thought of it as giving thing. For I was truly what was showing. Yet I was showing only a part of me, reflections -- the echoes of church music after the organist was gone. The music, the thoughts, the feelings amplied and heard bouncing by reflection off high arched ceilings that made the tones broader and more moving, that made me a tuner not an instrument. I was a mirror not an image, a mere reflection of everyone's sun.

Moonlight is soft, inviting, but intangible. It doesn't go deep and fades easily. It hasn't it's own fire to fuel it. It depends and changes on it's relationship to the sun. I wonder whether the sun finds the moon needy? I wonder whether the sun cares about the moon at all? Does the sun give credence to the moon's light? Does the sun recognize that light as its very own?

When I only reflected back to people who they are and I didn’t show my own thoughts or dreams. It was one more way to hide, thinking I wasn't good enough, one more way to not risk my trust. There is safety hiding behind the reflective light of the moon.

It was a long road to learn to be myself, and still know how to shine their light back.

It's a challenge to be a star when I choose to shine with the light of the moon.

−me strauss Letting me be

In the White Spaces

Some people look in the white spaces and see what someone meant to say. Some see the white spaces and hear only what they would have said. Some don’t even try, if the message is not in the exact of the black type, they’ll say it was said. They will deny it was intended.

I’ve met a few people who argue that words I chose were the wrong words for what I wanted to convey. They would tear at the fabric and threads of an idea or a feeling, as if they wanted to win something. If my message got through, then my words must have done the job that I had set out for them to do. How do they manage the contradiction?

If I listen with a heart open and willing, I can hear in white space between the words everything another person isn’t saying.

−me strauss Letting me be

Reflection, a Blue Sky Thanksgviving

If I could reflect back every blue sky that every someone has given me, I’d be priceless. I’d be a crystal lake that’s a mirror of the good things in humanity. I’d be a liquid filled with gratitude and compassion. I’d go deep with forgiveness and a lasting sense of faith in people.

I have faith in you always.

If I could reflect the joy that has come to me, I’d be one shining, peaceful oasis in a noisy cluttered world. I’d be offer anyone, everyone a place of safety, solace, silence, some little bit of certainty that God is in his heaven and the angels still watch over us.

Angels are everywhere. They are watching really.

If I could reflect, project my feelings to those I love, using words I care about. I would tell them of their genius, of their mighty uniqueness. I would write their essence into history. They would live forever.

Your mark is on the universe. Your love has left its mark on me.

That’s the size and depth of my gratitude. That’s the fuel that fires my soul.

That’s my reflection, a blue sky thanksgiving for the people in my life.

−me strauss Letting me be

Thinking about Writing

Thinking my thoughts on the screen where others can see them is a natural thing for a writer to do. Laying down my feelings, playing out my intentions, putting forth my ideas, these are just dimensions of the role that I play of the craft that I practice.

Yet when I write I fill every word with meaning, and I listen for the sounds of the music, and I hope for the simplest, softest tug at the heart when the head isn’t looking. I do all of these things, not because I am supposed to do them. I do all of them, because it’s all I know how to do.

−me strauss Letting me be

The Hero's Call

Quick as a wink the knight heard a rustle and hasten to the call of the damsel.
It was an amazing thing, an ache that had not had to happen. Light as feather, though he was on a fast horse, and riding through the weather to where she was lost. He made it fine her to ask whether her heart had been broken by trespasses of an evil doer.

She said no. The case was simply one of disappointment in a friend who had changed from a would-be hero into a man with feet made of clay.

And so the knight smiled and rode off again, knowing the world was still in balance and that the fair lady was safe. He never acknowledged that he was her hero, the one who would always be in her thoughts and could never fall from that horse without the world falling apart.

It is a fairy tale no one has ever told, but everyone has lived in some way.

−me strauss Letting me be

The Hero's Wall

I didn’t notice the wall go up. It was glass. I wasn’t looking. I have to wonder. I have to ask. Was it me or was it the builder? Who caused the decision for the wall to be made?

I didn’t notice the first bricks. They were moments of busy-ness. They were minutes of being unavailable. Some were kindness sent his way that went unnoticed. His requests still came in the sweetest way. I was happy to do a favor.

I was sure it was as he said, work getting in the way − family and pressing needs. I helped out all I could. He was sensitive to the behavior of others. I saw that. I found ways to make sure it wasn’t more. He always thanked me for watching his back.

Then three in a row happened, Slide the mortar; set the brick. Three times he didn’t show up. Slide the mortar; set the brick. Three times I was left to wonder. Slide the mortar; set the brick. Three times like in a fairy tale.

He had lived on the high ground. He had no room for less. He had no tolerance for those who didn’t. Yet the last time I heard him defend the folks he would have fought. And he didn't notice that he knocked me down in the process.

I thought fairy tales ended happily ever after, not with heroes who built walls.

−me strauss Letting me be

Perspective

A little perspective is important when I deal with intellectual work like publishing.

The need is greater when the stress and the feelings are high--feelings that things are going in the wrong directions. I should make time every day to go for a walk.

At the least, I should let my soul fly out the window.

−me strauss Letting me be

Taken for a Walk

I was on my way to a job interview in an open part of the city. When I drove by the day before, the building, a squat, two-storey brick structure reminded me of the newspaper building in my hometown. What reminded I don't really know. The only resemblance was two squares of block glass near the front door.

The structure from the fifties seemed forgotten in the 1980s world, alone on on a corner. Two of other corners were vacant lots and one was the location of a small convenience store. The building and the store seemed time would to become gentrified living space wasn't too far off.

It wasn’t far from high rise apartment building where I lived. I walked there easily.

As I stood on the corner diagonally from my destination, an old woman asked if I might help her cross the not so busy street. All my life I had heard of boy scouts helping old ladies cross the street, but I’d never had the chance. The idea felt good.

I put out my arm to help her. We walked ever so slowly from one corner to the next, conversing. Then she asked me to same to the next corner, taking me to where I need to be. I accommodated with good feelings. It was a nice thought to walk into an interview with.

Upon our arrival, she repeated her request a third time. This bothered me, but I continued to help. Yes, at that juncture she asked again. I retunrned her to where she had started. The question was reqpeated one more time.

I told her, “No, thank you,” pointing to the small building where I had my meeting.

The woman with the soft voice and the over-worn face asked me for a quarter. I gave her one. But I didn’t feel good about it. I felt taken for walk.

I walked quickly away to my interview. While I waited with the receptionist for the person I would be meeting. I told her the story. She said, “Oh you, met Sophie. We’ve told her not to do that. She’s always trying to get quarters that way.”

I wondered whether she was after the money, the conversation, or both.

I don’t remember the interview, the interviewer, the part-time job, or even what or companie it was I had gone there to explore,. I don’t recall the inside of the building beyond the doorway where I was buzzed in. I don’t remember the receptionist only what she said.

But I still have a picture of Sophie in my mind and still remember how sad and conflicted I felt leaving that building, hoping that she wasn’t there.

−me strauss Letting me be.

Instinct

From before we are born, we have knowledge. We have the learning of our species. It comes from centuries packed into us in the form of instinct.

As infants our fingers wrap around things.

We know how to make noise when we need attention. We are drawn to mate to preserve our species. We to fight or flee when we fear danger. Our instinct overrides our reasoning.

We know before we say our names to cry when we feel pain, when we need.

We know things.

How do we know so many things . . . and still not know ourselves?

−me strauss Letting me be

Deep, Down Inside

Fill a cup and a thimble. Aren’t they both full?

I heard that metaphor when I was so young that I did what a child would do. I thought of the cup as a grown-up and the thimble as a child. Now that I am a grown-up, and I reflect on that I think I had the metaphor backwards. I think the child is the cup and the adult is the thimble.

We start out connected to all of our feelings. We discover what it’s like to move . . . to walk, to run, to jump . . . to be picked up and spun around with laughter. We learn about how our hands and feet work, what makes tears come, and how we feel after someone who loves us gives us a hug. As children we know why the world needs people to be fair and keep their promises. We know why being nice and being honest somehow makes the sun shine. And when we talk of such things we use words like, “deep down inside.”

A person would have to walk days and thousands of miles to find a child who is arrogant and shallow.

Along the way of our growing up things we face things that lead us to protect ourselves. Slowly that open heart learns new rules about how to respond and react with other people. Some of us close the basement door and forget that “deep down inside” was ever there. As time passes we close more doors until we’re living only on the ground level, no deeper.

If we’re lucky when we get older we learn how to reverse the process.

I want to see how far “deep, down inside” gets.

−me strauss Letting me be

A Dissertation on Pretty Special

I wrote this in college and edited it today.

A Dissertation on Pretty Special
Also called:
A lot of good being pretty special has done me.
(written on blue paper to show there is still hope.)

I. Definitions of pretty special.
Please don’t confuse pretty special with pretty or special. Pretty means nice to look at, pleasing. Given that you are adequately pretty − the rest is a state of mind.

Walk into a room as if you’re pretty. Convince one person − you− that you’re pretty and you are. But being pretty takes energy.

Special means not ordinary, unique. It takes extra eneergy even to pinpoint special. It takes some bravery to do. And then, of course, it takes energy for folks to understand special, too.

Being pretty special− what does that mean? Does it mean giving up the right to be the same as everyone else? Does it have to mean trying too hard to do what should come naturally? Does it mean making everyone else’s life easier at the expense of your own?

II. Payoffs of Pretty Special
Some days, it’s nice to see through pretty special eyes, to be the eternal optimist. Yet being the eternal optimist takes energy unlimited − like trying to float for days on end.

A kind of distant admiration − call it glamour − comes with doing, but glamour is the shiny side of lonely. It’s sad that you cannot touch it and hold it. A kind of belittling, distancing, distrusting comes with it too.

III. Pretty Special in the End
All in all people don’t like to spend much time with “pretty special.” To the average human being it’s just too demanding.

So you give up demanding and people say, “You’re pretty special.”

Irony.

−me strauss Letting me be

Traffic Jams and Wisdom

At times, I think Sartre was right.
I have no need for hot pokes -- hell is other people.

People. Wouldn’t life be nice without them? Every decision would be easy. No hurt feelings could ever happen. No one would judge what we do. No one would tell us “ought tos,” “musts,” and “shoulds.” We would be in paradise, living a life of Riley, and we could mix metaphors like that with abandon.
Of course, there’s no real logic that paragraph. It’s escapist thinking that comes around when I’m being pulled in too many directions, and feeling too many people making too many demands.

“Go here. Go there. Go out. Go inside. Go up. Go down. Faster. Faster. Slow down. It’s too blurry. You don’t care. You care too much. What are doing there? What are thinking now? Why aren’t you doing what I want you to do? Can’t you see that my way is the best way for to go? If you don’t think like me, you are selfish and possibly clinical. I’d never treat you that way. I’d do what I think you should do. Listen to me. Listen to my needs. They are more important than yours”

Clutter and noise. Noise and clutter. Who can think in the midst that? Who can find the directions a map? “Honk, honk. Beep. beep. Beep. beep. Honk, honk. Screech. Bang. Crunch! Look what you’ve done to me. Why weren’t you paying attention?”

It’s a traffic jam of people telling me what to do, who I should be. Time to find my way to a rest area. One by one, I drive away onto slower roads, until I am alone on the road that is me.

Then I can look inside and listen to my own inner wisdom.

It doesn't yell answers. It merely speaks what I already know.

−me strauss Letting me be

The Humanity of Parents and Children

It’s a weird fact of nature that draws from how our brains develop. As children we’re concrete, literal thinkers, sort of binary computers. We construct meaning by find out what things are and are not. We point to colors and ask what is that. People tell us until we have our own concept. That’s why we love the game of opposites.

As children we find reality in false opposites. To a child’s mind, dog is the opposite of cat. Mom is the opposite of Dad, and brother is the opposite of sister. We also think that grown-ups know everything − that because they answer our questions, we assume they hold the answer to every question. We endow them with complete information.

Those definitions make sense at young ages. In fact, they are vital to our sense of security.

The problem is that those definitions stay with us. Most of us become grown-ups who unconsciously believe that our parents are not human, but one of two opposites − a god or a shell of a being. That happens when we can’t untangle their very human flaws and fears. Like a child does, we take responsibility. Whatever they feel must be our fault. Whatever they did in some way we were the cause. Will we remember that?

I was 26 when my mom died. I was 27, when I first began to see her as a woman, not my mother. It took her death for the words and roles, daughter, mother, to move out of the way so that I could see the person. Things that I thought she thought about me, things that I thought were my failings, I finally realized were really her human, natural, oh so forgivable, responses to losing a baby. I had constructed to many ideas on a child’s interpretations of her actions, and once those roles were forged, we both thought we knew. We didn’t.

Parents are people. Children can’t see that. It’s true the other way as well.

Forgiveness. Compassion. Distance. Seeing.

If only we could shed our roles and our histories to meet again with the generosity we give to strangers.

−me strauss Letting me be

A Song from Childhood

We were staying in a cabin in a forest. I was with my friend who knows me longer than any other. Our friendship is at that highest level in which the thinnest of armor or protection was too cumbersome and too unnecessary.

We’d spent the night in conversation from the lightest to the heaviest, from the brightest to the dimmest, and we’d ventured to the edges of the known world dreaming up ways to fix what ‘s in it. Our best answer had involved the distillation of a better cognac, the proofing of a finer vodka, and the rearing of people who were far more generous.

She’s shorter and an organized thinker. So, she found her way to the feather bed, when I found my way to my journal and another glass of a Sauvignon Blanc I particularly like. I wrote a while until that hour was upon me. It’s the time when the world seems fooled -- that night might stand still to give us all the time we need to have our thoughts leisurely.

I walked out to the patio, thinking I might do that. Yet sitting with my glass of wine, I found the forest made me think of myself as the tree that falls with no sound when no one is there to hear. So rather than fight that feeling I took a walk to join the trees. I headed toward the water with my "long way to morning" thoughts.

Just before sunrise, that sunrise, every sunrise, I am like that soundless tree. No one knows me. No one sees me. I don’t need a name, a number or place where I must settle. I can be anyone. I have the luxury of time. I am soundless and alive. It’s free to set aside connections, to walk alone without realities, to drop off the definitions my life has drawn. I wonder if the tree knows that. I wonder if the sky and water understand the stillness of the time.

I sit in darkness by the water. It’s wealth to think I am no one. I’ve no place to be but where I am, no stress to feel but the faint breeze and anticipation of a sunrise. The sun seems to set the tempo. I takes it’s time, a slow red glow growing on the water. I’m walking with the sunrise beside me.

I sing a song from childhood.

No one can hear me, but yes I am.

−me strauss Letting me be

More than What Happens

Why did I hold onto my pain for so long? For decades I carried it with me. I look back now and every example seems so small. Why did I make those things so important? I didn’t wish harm to anyone. Did I feel I was nothing without them?

The bad things, the hurtful things were like banners and badges. In some ways, my responses to bad events were accomplishments. I thought of them as character-building experiences. I didn’t want revenge or glory, but I think I wanted someone to see . . . to see what? . . . to see what hurt me to help me understand. Yet somehow those events began to define me. The accomplishments and the events became the same things. Then they became part of me.

I still think that bad events can build character. I know that mine changed me, and now finally for the better. Then I thought living through the pain was the learning they had to offer. Now I know the real learning was when I could say I laid down the pain.

I blessed it, buried it, and walked away from it.

I still remember, but no longer define myself by it.

I am more than what happens to me.

−me strauss Letting me be

Calling Scatterlings

Finding an old friend again after time has gone by, can be joyous, resetting the world in a softer fashion. The relief of a welcome embrace can erase almost any self-doubting question. Yet I hear, I feel, the slight fear, the small hesitation. Am I really here? Is it really you? Will you be glad that you came? Will you recognize me?

Seeing a friend again is like a first date with someone I’ve admired from far away, wishing to share a meal or a drink and conversation. I've already wondered what we would talk about if that ever happened. When I meet a dear friend again, the joy is fragile with echoes of talk of what we haven't been sharing.

Passing time has a way of making a silence, a void, an open space unexplained, eventsunshared; ideas spent elsewhere; people met; faces, smiles, and history without the words included. Does that mean something -- a change; or nothing -- the same? Finally knowing that truth will be an easy thing. Finding out is a monster of imagination.

How do we locate the bridge to the old conversation? I worry that you're afraid I will be wanting, needing, wishing for things gone by, things no longer, a "we" that used to exist. How do we get to new things based on the beauty of old history?

Surely the bond of connection, the stories of scatterlings that made the bell sing, the music that made it okay to share secrets is still forged and truly there. Every link held out danger in the night when needed to meet, holding tears and thoughts safe in the cabin up the path under the trees. Together was powerfully moving, life changing, remarkable, unforgettable, and unique. How do we move forward? How do we find the new road? How do I tell you I see the same things you see?

Here I am again needing to be brave and vulnerable. Yet it's a new version of me meeting a new version of you.

I hear the bell at the cabin ringing, singing. Calling to scatterlings, recalling memories.

Finding an old friend is worth every scary second of saying hello again.

−me strauss Letting me be

It Was Sunday in Italy

I didn’t realize how much I depend on eavesdropping when I travel, until there I was in the airport outside Trieste, Italy, and I had no Italian. What Italian I had as a child, failed me. Something was wrong. My plane wasn’t boarding. It was supposed to have left a half hour ago, but no one was going anywhere.

I wondered what to do. I couldn’t call. The airline only had an 800 number, and 800 numbers don’t work in Europe. This wasn’t a place where English was spoken or necessary. I listen into conversations, but I got no information, only sounds I didn’t understand.

Finally I got lucky. A handsome Italian man going to Rome explained in English that the plane I was supposed to be on had had a small fire. There would be no plane again until tomorrow. My choices were slim. I could stay in the Friuli Valley. I could take a taxi to Venice and try to make connections there. I finally reached my airlines by telephone through my cellphone company’s International number. Arrangements were made to change my flights to fly out from Trieste the next day. My Rome connection to London was rearranged.

I found a taxi to take me to the nearest hotel. It was now 2:30 p.m. I had been at the tiny airport since 9 a.m. to make my morning flight. I was hungry and tired, and so ready to have a place to call my own. When we pulled up to the hotel, I asked in English, “Is this right?”

The taxi driver ran to the door. He knocked and read a sign. He came back and somehow communicated that I would have to wait because the hotel wouldn’t open until 4:30 p.m. or so − another 2 hours. He suggested that I wait on the patio. What other choice did I have?

When the owner came, she was lovely and most gracious, but she also had no English. She checked me in swiftly. Gave me a key. I asked about food. She shook her head slowly. In broken English, she let me know the restaurant was closed on Sunday. She was sorry. She pointed me in the direction of a restaurant down the street.

I headed out walking to find a patio under tree on a cool night.

It was a Chinese restaurant. That explained why it was open. I asked for a glass of their best Italian white. Then I opened the menu to look for my favorite Chinese foods. The first word I saw was Antipasto.

I ordered the pizza instead. It was Sunday in Italy.

−me strauss Letting me be

A Dream of Removing Problems

I had a dream when I was napping in which I was in charge of a marketing meeting. The attendees were all women. The meeting was conference room in which one wall was like kitchen. The other main character was Stella. Stella was a woman of her forties. Black hair, almost short, she smiled a lot. She’s a blogger and a travel agent. She had moved cross country to Austin. When she was finally settled, like a prodigal daughter, she came back. She said my blog was like coming home.

In my dream Stella was wearing a micro-mini skirt. Despite how well it suited her, it was inappropriate for the work situation in which she wore it. Somehow, Stella had drunk too much Kahlua and − like the rest of the women − was too intent on fixing her lunch and chatting than in attending to the meeting.

Lunches prepared, they sat and yet the chatting continued, I said, "Excuse me." Three times. It was like a fairy −three times. They stopped and looked. I said, "We'll have this meeting again tomorrow, perhaps by then you can remember what people do during a business meeting.

Then I asked Stella to come with me. I thought that we might talk her about the Kahlua and her micro-mini skirt. She couldn't walk well. I held her arm as we moved slowly to some stairs

On the way, I asked three questions, and she answer each of them.
1. You're drunk on Kahlua at work, aren't you? Yes.
2. This isn't the first time, is it? No
3. Do you really want to lose your job this way? No.

The stairs were filled with white Formica-topped children’s-school desks, stacked like loose stairs up the actual stairs. I knew she wouldn’t be able to negotiate them so I picked her up and carried her like someone might carry a four year old.

I said, "Don't worry. I know I can do this."

I carefully found my footing, knowing and riding when desks shifted their weight.

The stairway even turned left once. It was 18 stairs – tall, steep, and narrow – the sort of narrow that puts both the side walls close enough to lay palms flat if you put your arms out − like the stairway to my doctor's office, that I went to when I had mononucleosis in 5th grade. And like that stairway at the bottom the door opened to the outside, the sidewalk and daylight.

That's when I put her down and woke up.
I was thinking calmly that I had had a "nice" dream.
I’ve thought about it a lot since then.
−me strauss Letting me be

What They See

They see a flower
when they look
that’s what they see
a flower
tall and straight
soft and beautiful
greeting the sun
open to the bees
open to everyone
when they look
they see a flower
that’s what they see
a flower.
They think it’s me.
Am I what they see?
Am I what they perceive?

Am I what I have been?
Am I something between?
Does it sort itself out?
What does it mean

when they see the flower
and I know the roots tell the truth-laden story?
They see a flower. I feel the roots.
The roots are my power. The roots are my hold on life.

They see a flower. I feel the roots.

Whose perception is reality?

Whose reality is only perception?

They see a flower when they look.

that’s what they see, a flower.

They think it’s me.

−me strauss Letting me be

In the Arms of the Moon

I don’t have much to offer that would bring you use or pleasure. I have no money, no worldly treasure that you might keep as some family heirloom. I’ve been remiss at honoring relationships I value. Please don’t believe you’re not in my heart. The road I travel has been rocky, distant, and deeply solitary, but it was not a road away from you. I'm not sure that it was a choice. I've walked most of my life to find a way back home.

Still I have a pile of words I’ve been collecting to give to you one day. They’re moments, hopes, and conversations I’ve had with you on my own, in my thinking of you. You've been with me more than you know and so I'd like to share them with you. I hope you don't mind. Please don't mind.

I’ve always had a wish for a life time of love and laughter that sits right on your doorstep, a happily ever after that follows you like colorful shadow. Though I know the road less traveled a little more than most folks do, I hope that you find your travels take you where someone, at least one, always loves you. Even when the days bring sadness, when grief tears and pulls your heart, may your soul keep filled with stuff that stars are made of. May your feet always know the ground you stand on.

When you see the sun rise, I hope that you always take for granted that someone put it there for you. And each night when you close your eyes sleep safe in the arms of the moon, wrapped in a blanket of red with God and the angels watching over you.

I love you. I always will.

−me strauss Letting me be

The Center of the Universe

When I am the center of the universe, everything revolves around me. I can do no thing, nothing wrong. I don’t need to think, ponder, or consider one thing, any thing, anything. I’m what things are about and all things are about me, me, me.

Here at the center, I don’t really know that I’m thinking such things, but all of my thoughts are that my thoughts are the only ones that really count.

I am beginning and end. I am gravity. My marvelous, magnetic personality draws in everyone like invisible magic.

Compassion, forgiveness. I lose sight of them. Don’t need them. When things go wrong it’s really a problem of folks who need sorting out. When I show them the right point of view, they understand how wonderfully everything works. It’s amazing how it never crosses my mind that another universe might have another center.

Until, slam, bam, whoosh, uh-oh, what? Someone misinterpreted something I said. Someone called me a fool, and I was in some way. I missed something wonderful someone did. My universe was nothing but the legend of me in my head. I was wrapped up, rolled up, and totally upside down, thinking my life, my problems, my details were what the universe is about. When it came to folks who needed sorting, I was the one. It’s amazing how it never crossed my mind that the universe might not agree with my every little thought.

It might be nice, for a moment, to imagine that I might be what NASA calls a glitzy, glamorous galaxy.

It’s nicer to care about other people

−me strauss Letting me be

Genuine Feelings

He’s attractive, magnetic, so entertaining. He’s often smiling and calling folks by name, when he tells them colorful and elaborate tales that they wish they could remember and tell half as well. He teases, and plays, and teaches them things that are useless, but entertaining.

He owns the audience and makes a stage where one never had been, just by his presence. He’s got the presence of a king or a hand-shaking, baby-kissing politician. All of the show, so much show − always his guard up − people never hear his authentic voice speaking.

So rare is the moment that he is not “on.” I wonder what he’s like when he’s alone. Did he get taken by that Elvis song − that “all of the world is stage”? I wonder if deep inside anyone's home.
The grouch is quite cranky. He smiles when he must, begrudgingly. He doesn’t know the Elvis song nor does he know any. He only talks to those few who are good enough. He works, and fixes, and hmmph! explains what he must. This one owns the code and the passwords to stuff. He’s a headmaster trying relationships because books say that he’s supposed to, though he can’t really see the point of time wasted on talk. He uses façade so no one knows exactly what he is thinking

Rare is the moment that I’ve seen him show genuine care for another person’s feelings or their situation. Did he take his teachers too seriously when they said “Sit up straight. Fold your hands. Be serious. Stop talking.” I wonder?

So different and the same in one way. Neither one understands the curtain, the wall of not seeing between them and people. They don’t realize that despite their work not to reveal who they are. It's opaque like colorful water. We can see through it. Little actions show feeling they think are hidden. For example they don't know they can’t tease someone they don’t like. They don't understand why their family doesn't laugh when they only pretend to be funny.

Two men so protected, they don’t know that the world can see when they are leaking bits of genuine feelings.

−me strauss Letting me strauss.

My Place in the Sun

On the first day of school, in a seminar, at someone’s house, peoples say, “Come on in. Find a place. Make yourself comfortable.” They seem to think that’s easy. They seem to think that any place is the same, just the same as any other.

That might be how it works for them. It’s not how it works for me.

When I find a place to be comfortable, I become part of it. It becomes part of me.

I’m an introvert, extrovert, introvert, who likes to be in a cave, on the stage, in a cave. Please don’t look at me or make me invisible. Don’t leave out or put me on a pedestal. I’m really shy, but I never have stage fright. The difference in all of these is holding the microphone.

All my life I’ve had a feeling that I would do something important, something that only I would make happen. Maybe that’s why I’m such a weird combination of contradictions or maybe I’m so normal that I can’t see it. It seems awfully normal towalk around feeling different, contradictory, and confused.

Isn’t everyone looking for their place in the sun?
I think that mine is hiding somewhere deep inside of me.

−me strauss Letting me be

Blue Skies

Walking around with my head in the clouds − I’ve heard that said about me. Wandering aimlessly looking at blue skies, isn’t such an awful way to go about things.

People respond to a smile, and those reactions feel good coming right back onto me. But the truth is that what people think is not what it seems. I don’t have my head in clouds. Oh, no, no, it’s much worse than that.

I live in a world of blue skies and sunshine. Head, heart and soul of me longs for there all of the time. Blue skies and sunshine aren’t really all I see, but I sure try to whenever I can.

I’ll grant you that some days it’s more work than I need, but pushing to find blue skies is more than a ritual or a dream. It’s a quest. The chemistry of being sad makes me not very likable, and at the end of a day. I like to like me.

Blue skies are shy things that hide out behind the gray that can hang over a not so nice day. If you go looking, know that they’re like a bashful child. They’ll pull back and wait for you to come after them. They’re in the eyes of friendly folks you know. They’re in the laughter of people you love. Give gloomy friends crayons to color away the gray. Send broken hearts flowers as they mend. Always keep chocolate, plenty of chocolate, if only in case of electrical storms.

Let people know that a blue sky can’t frighten you. Take it out, break it out for all to experience. Free that bashful, shy blue sky to play with the world a while. Don’t have your head in the clouds.

Put your heart up there next to mine.

C'mon it's easy.

−me strauss Letting me be

Remarkable Footprints

I’d been watching the water since just about sun up. I’d been writing in my journal, thinking about life and stuff. A reoccurring theme kept playing in my head and on the page I was writing on. Like the waves on the ocean that theme kept repeating, repeating without regard to the sky, the sand, or my staring and wondering.

My life keeps circling round to lessons I’ve met before. The same mishaps keep happening. The same rugs keep getting pulled. Two years now had been as if all of the losing and learning had been wrapped and served up to me at once. This time it had come close to changing me. The concrete way down there was all that had kept the wolves from coming in.

I put my pencil down to watch the water. Watching was all I had been good at doing for quite a while there. I mentally let the waves wash away worries, clean off the weight of fears that I’d fought my through. I saw myself lean back on the surface to let my cares float to the sky to dissolve. The bubbles in the wavy foam would have done the same if they could have done what they wanted to. All things in nature know what they must do. People could learn something from that natural way of thinking.

People had told me I was too much or too little, too tall or too filled with feeling. They had made it clear that I couldn’t do what I do so well. I came close to actually believing them. What made me want to listen? What stopped me in the end from giving in, from giving up?

Who knows how long before I packed up my journal to walk back to life again. With a new resolve I set off. It was time to say, You’re wrong. I can. I will. Stand back, and watch me.

When I turned for a last look, I saw people caught in a conversation. They were gathered together at the path I had taken. Who could explain what they saw before them?

They were staring at remarkable footprints in the sand.

−me strauss Letting me strauss