A Walk

If I could walk with a wise man, would I know enough to listen?

A View of Green Grass

Flat on the ground, eye level with the green, green grass of summer, I don't like the feel of all of that. I'm too sensitive. Every breeze makes a blade of grass move over me. I'm too aware of it. When I know I'll be in the grass, I wear jeans, sneakers, and socks so I can be aware of something else. Otherwise I'm too distracted.

Yet one day I sat in the grass with a young man . . . handsome and tall. I was even more sensitive. Every breeze was a wonder to watch as each bold blade moved. It was majestic. It was romantic. I was anticipation. We read a book together. We talked and drank wine. Then we fell forward to look through every blade of green chins on our hands like children. The grass looked wonderful from eye level. It was majestic. It was romantic. It was memorable.

Some things depend on your point of view. Ummm.

--me strauss Letting me be

Under Your Umbrella

It's not raining.

Space, sky, sand, the safe place of your mind are what I know of you. Over the years and miles, we never got far enough from somewhere. Buildings, not the sky or sand, were our habitat. Still we were there, walking outside of the places where faces and hands, voices and plans for the future piled high to obscure the view.

We were too young and too curious to choose.

Hardly did we know that we walked a tightrope, that we were pulled, not that we pushed. It was hard like concrete on our softest ideals. We kept them close. Most folks hardly noticed, if they noticed. We were burglars on tiptoe, skirting the curtain watching them leave the auditorium. We didn't know we were players ourselves.

Now as we walk on the sand, with the sky and the space all around. I think of how I've lived under your umbrella always then, always now. Even when I didn't know where you were, you were here in the golden sun holding my hand.

It's not raining -- it never is where you are.

--me strauss Letting me strauss

A Conversation with a Waterfall of Light

He said let's go for a hike. I'm not much for walking, unless circumstances are just right.

But I did, because they were and because it was with him.

It was a day from forever. Who says no to family? to a boy I grew up with? to guy I didn't know until we discovered each other a few short months earlier?

We were in our twenties. We had so much to talk about. We knew so much about life.

After being the two who were shy, suddenly we were the two who could for hours about people, about dreams, about how to make a decision.

Now he was taller than I am. His voice had become husky and deep. His laughter full and alive. He was no longer Grandma's little priest. Did she ever call him that? Why did we? How did that start? We didn't know.

We are the same age six days each year. We have so much and so many people in common. How could it take us so long to find out?

We walked and talked about the things that we didn't know growing up. We both had thought that our aunt and uncle (who were siblings) had once been married to each other. He said he'd thought that until high school. I said, "So did I."

It was all afternoon that we walked and shared our experiences. His family was his, and mine was mine. But our problems were ours, and they looked the same when talked about them.

One by one, we analyzed the people who lived in the center of the Venn diagram where our two families met. Our mother's mother was at the top. We spent the most time on the ones we knew least about -- those who had gone their own way, followed their own path, left the others behind. Suddenly as the lone wolves of our own packs, for the very first time, we had a feeling that we were their kin. I remember we stopped to divorce our families to start one of our own.

By the time we got deep into the state park, we had wondered why we hadn't had a conversation earlier in our lives.

It was then that we came upon the most amazing waterfall. It was a waterfall of light. We sat and talked for three more hours. For chunks of time we just watched the water fall.

He and I must have looked like lovers, because one couple who came by sort of hinted at changing partners for the day. We still laugh about that. They didn't stand a chance of competing with the conversation, the laughter, and the water made of light.

The way the waterfall reflected the light, the way the light was reflected in the waterfall, that was the way of our conversation.

Everything in this story is true, even the parts that didn't happen.

--me strauss Letting me be