Winter Nights

On a winter night when you feel alone, when the air feels so still and so cold, listen. If you listen , listen deep with your heart, you will know why the winter air is so clear. Winter nights are special, magical, incandescent. The light from the moon on the snow sparkling in the clear, cold makes being alone a blessing. Listen and you will know.

I promise. Just listen.

The space of a winter night seems to go on forever. It reaches out seamlessly like a river. At the same time, it wraps and enfolds, so you know you’ll never fall. You know you’ll never really get old or ever have to hurt in your feelings again.

Some winter nights are made for walking the dog and listening to what your thoughts are thinking. Some winter nights are made for watching the stars hold up the sky as they are twinkling. Some winter nights are made for understanding that life is only what happens.

And some winter nights, when we’re dreaming, the sun comes a second time. It paints a splash of sunset where, a second ago, only dark was there.

Winter nights are special, magical, incandescent, but never, ever lonely.

−me strauss Letting me be

Alliteration in the Snow

One night, when I was a college freshman, a girl in my dorm made this memory.

A tall, black-haired, busty, beauty from Boca Raton saw the sparkle of snow for the very first time. She ran out, barefoot, wearing filmy baby-blue, baby-doll pajamas.

--me strauss Letting me be

Missing Me. Missing You

You thought
what you saw
was all
Was that arrogance
short-sightedness or
lack of curiosity?
Wondering
what else you've missed?

I thought
what I saw
was all
Was that arrogance
short-sightedness or
lack of curiosity?
Wondering
what else I've missed?

Missing me, Missing you.
We need to look more closely to see.

--me strauss Letting me be

Old Tree, Humbling

What is wisdom? I wonder.

Every bit of life has given me a bit of knowledge. Decisions that I once fretted, and tore paper over, whisper past me on a breeze. I don’t worry nearly as much as I once did. Have I grown more into my being? Or has my brain chemistry settled to where it always was meant to be? I walk the road that is my own and each step gets easier.

But do I know wisdom?

When I think of wisdom, I think of an old tree that has lasted by a river, through many storms and so much erosion. It knows what it means to go from a green weed to a strong healthy unbendable force holding its ground, branches spread in glory. The old tree also knows what it means to lose that stature, leaf by leaf, cell by cell, until stands frail and gnarly, with only memories of what was to replace all of the “what could bes.”

Wisdom comes with loss. Yet that gnarly tree knows. It’s learned to bend with time. It lived with nature. It let go of it’s beauty to be part of the world in which it lives. It has no reason fight the wind. It is a gentle, harmony.

Wisdom is like music. Intangible, earned through practice, and requiring a gentle giving.

What a magic feeling, how calm and how humbling, it must be to be wise.

−me strauss Letting me be.

25 Words: Push

25 words

It doesn't seem like I push,
in the end, when I'm tired,
I just keep walking.
It's me pulled, not me pushing.
I would rather be dancing.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

--me strauss Letting me be

Like an Old Friend

Like an old friend, my pen awaits me. It never asks me why. Yet it's there where I left it, ready to take up the conversation with my next word, my next sentence. I lovely consistency it lays the ink on the page in translation of my thoughts so perfectly, so plainly.

Like an old friend, my pen doesn't need me to edit my feelings as they leave my heart and find their way down to my hand. It make not a sound, no snicker, no judgment of the words or the way I arrange them to expess my creativity, my anger, or my deepfelt need to help when help is the farthest thing from all the rools I can call to my command.

Like an old friend, my pen awaits me. I write my name and I stare at it.

It holds my secrets safe. I hold it in my hand.

--me strauss Letting me be

Space and Room

When the clouds are high and heavy, and the walls are closing in, I do okay if I have space in my emotional memory. My sense of space is part of who I am. It walks around with me. When I’m with other people, it tells me where to stand.

I feel it in my soul when circumstances take my space and leave me cramped. My breathing gets shallow. My fuse get short. My memory misfires. I have no space to offer anyone else. I’m pinned against a wall.

And when I see another who has no space left. I want to give some of my own. But it doesn’t work like that. I can only point to the sky and tell her to look. I can only remind her to breathe. I can only be here.

I can’t give her space, but I can make more room for her in my heart.

−me strauss Letting me strauss

Old Sheet Music, the Rabbit Hole, and Ruby Slippers

She called last night, sounding like old sheet music worn at the edges that the band left on bleachers and then forgot.

She laughed about how at our age, if you don’t drink a lot, a glass or two of wine can work wonders for a busy head. She said that her mind had been places over the last few weeks, not quite the places where mine goes, but strange enough places, weird places. For her that little bit was more about herself than she usually reveals in a year.

I wondered if she knew how tired she sounded. I wondered if she knew why she called.

I did.

She remarked on the tragic death that had visited her son’s close friend. She told the story of how her son was still responding. She talked about how he went into the cave and laid down on his bed. She told me she wanted to help. What I heard was how helpless she felt.

“I am worried. I am worried. I am worried,” she said. “If I say that three times, will it go away?”
“Yes, Dorothy,” I answered as softly as I could. “It will go away.”

She said something about getting some ruby shoes then.

She said she knew that the problem was one of grieving. I said I knew that too. She said that she bought a book about it for him.

“Books are good,” she said. “Books are good. "

“Yes. they are.” I said, “Maybe you bought it for you.”

“Yeah,” she acknowledged that.

Then she told me all of the weird places where her mind had gone in the past few weeks. They were to stories of our growing up. I could hear her trying to find home again, trying to know that something, something real will lasts. She asked me an extremely personal question. She said most girls know the answer to that and I realized I don't know about any of my friends.

She wondered why I hesitated when I answered. I said because I didn't like the answer. I'd change it if I could. She said you were too nice. I said I still am about things like that. I'm working on it. She told me not to that it was those things, those kind things that would get us to heaven in the end.

She never talks about heaven. But last night she did.

She also asked me to do something if she ever got hit by a bus. I took the number and promised to make the call.

I think back now of many times she said that she asked her son, “Can I come in and lay down with you?” She said you can’t pick up a 22 year old man and rock him anymore.

Aw Dorothy, this is Alice in Wonderland, we’ve known each other so well and so long. I’ve been down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass, beat up, and come back again. I don’t know very much, but this I do know. You are fine. You are good. You are exactly perfect just as you are.

She called last night, sounding like old sheet music worn at the edges. I can’t tell her today what a symphony she is, because she only shares her fear every ten or so years.

But I have to believe. I have to bet my heart that she’ll look down to see the ruby shoes that she already has.

−me strauss Letting me be

When I Look at the Sky at Night

When I look at the sky at night, I don’t see the work I have to do. I don’t see my chores pressing on me. I don’t see errands that I have to run. I don’t see the people who have small minds and small hearts.

I see infinity.

I see a blue-black sky that goes on forever, goes on beyond my comprehension. I see an abyss that holds wonders of color so distant that, despite their massive heat and vibrancy, their light has still not come to where I am. My eyes stretch with my imagination to catch the smallest glimmer of a nebula, a star nursery, a galaxy. I lift my hand to touch. I lift my heart, just because one day I believe that I will see.

Imagine the big picture view of the universe. The color, the amazing variety, the power, the calm and thunder of a system that knows itself, the silence . . . all of these at once can be imagined only as a feeling. What wisdom, what wonder, what fun and joy − to see the universe like an infinite, omniscient garden.

When I look at the sky at night, I see stars and the black abyss that holds them.

I also see as much as I can imagine.

−me strauss Letting me be

Dancing to HIgher Ground

I sit alone. And I hear a sound.

One, and-a-two, And three, and-a-four.

It’s a hand. An old piano. Picking out a tune. It seems meant for me. It plays again. And then it repeats.

One, and-a-two, And three, and-a-four. I am at once, a sway, and a bounce. A soft hum begins in the background. A tapping sounds so lightly on the drums. Two grown guys hum in cool harmony. I keep thinking of them as if they’re 8 years old. I want to hum with them.

One, and-a-two, And three, and-a-four. A move, a sway, a bounce.

Words tell about the things I once knew. Happy sounds say things turn out right.

And I believe again in what’s there.

Within the backyards and the hours, the baseball games and innocence of wildflowers, a light shines day and night. A bee hums. The breeze smiles. I feel my own healing power. It’s a good thing, knowing that I’m not alone.

One, and-a-two, And three, and-a-four. I set trouble down. and turn myself around. I step into the light, and dance to higher ground.

I hear music. I see the stars. Day and night.

And my feet dance, and my feet dance, and my feet dance with that piano . . . and two grown guys who hum in cool harmony.

One, and-a-two, And three, and-a-four.

I step into the light, and dance to higher ground.

−me strauss Letting me be

Writing the Rain

A desk by the window, a journal to write in, these are the tools, the places where I live my life. I live in my mind. I live on paper. I live on the computer screen. Once in a while I live in the world where the people pass by me on the street.

Today it is raining.

People say they are glad it isn’t snow. The streets are wet. They are shiny under the lights of the city. The drops are small and soft on the windows, in the air floating downward They surround the city lamps with a swarm of wet dot. The lamps shed a glow of watery illumination that makes the air glisten as if the lights were dressed for a formal occasion, as if they were debutantes coming out at a ball. Yet, most people don’t see. They don’t see the magic of it all, the illusion right above them.

Most folks see only the cause for umbrellas and taxis. Most folks feel only the wet falling on their hair, on new-polished shoes, and their faces. Most folks are worried, are busy, are in a hurry. They're preoccupied with the human-made side of life. They see the rain as blocking their view, slowing their pace, and generally in their way.

I see the rain as a shower, a powerful, graceful invitation to refresh the view, a chance to renew my emotional state, my imagination. I see the healing, the good feelings of the rain coming down. I know the growing that will be happening. When the wildflowers drink it in, they will be coming up, up, up. I picture the meadows lush and green and filled with the joy and color of nature, the nature of wonder.

I don’t mind the drops that cling. I don’t mind my bad hair. I don’t notice as I let my mind wander in between tiny drops of rain, riding the currents of clean, wet air from here to everywhere.

The rain is there outside my window and inside my soul. When I’m outside my window too, I feel it all around, inside me, and on me. I don’t need an umbrella. I’m part of nature.

I’ve been wet before.

−me strauss Letting me be

A Lizard on a Leaf

They say it’s a jungle, a concrete jungle. When I think on that, they’re doing an injustice to the rain forest.

The towering trees and the canopies of the jungle make it dark and scary. The sound and traffic of the species would overwhelm me. I’d be lost in breath. I eaten by bugs long before some large predator got me, long before I was lured by a poisonous frog. The assault of the foreign and frightening would be more than my spirit could handle even with a guide beside me, even with the protection of a crowd.

Some days people scare me more.

That's when I go to the rain forest in my mind, to imagine the life of lizard on a leaf . . .

−me strauss Letting me be

Watercolors In the Sky

I don’t have to live under a gray sky if I don’t want to. I change the weather as easily as I change my mind. It’s a matter of knowing that what I see is only light bouncing on molecules of the atmosphere.

I know a thing or two about atmosphere, positively.

I make my weather. I make my luck. I draw things to me with my magnetic personality. I open up my arms and people come inside. It’s the way we’re wired. It’s the way we’re wound. Hold your arms out to a baby learning to walk and see what happens. Open arms is an easy thing. It comes naturally.

So does changing the weather.

Watercolors, a brush, and my imagination are the tools that befriend me, when my sky is dastardly, damning, deserving of Dante – not the kind of sky I need. Clear water in a cup reminds me that, when I close my eyes to what things might mean, I can make the colors clear. I can find blank canvas on which to paint a sky that I’d rather see – one that has room for me to move forward, one that has room for me to forgive and find a positive reality.

I paint with a vengeance over the darkness to remind that there’s a sun of promise behind that gray cloud cover.

Then I smile at the mess I made of the table around me.

−me strauss Letting me strauss

Along the Wall

along the wall
I have hung postcards
each from a different location
each from a different friend
each told a different tale
of a moment in a different life
silent and beautiful
still and full with time
and I pass by them
every day as if I
never knew that they
represent real events
of people I know and love
who have left me
their memories
which I have hung
along the wall

-- me strauss Letting me be

In the Silver Mine

Some folks search for gold with lust and a vibrancy. They live their life on the edge of survival. I don’t search. I wander. I wonder. I’m lucky, it comes to me. So does the rain, the snow, and the ugly slush.

But when I need time, it’s not the gold that I look for. When I need space, it’s not the riches I see. It’s the silence I crave. It’s wandering inside the silver mine. It might be dirty and unfinished, but it’s quiet; it doesn’t hurt my eyes; and it’s a constant discovery.

In the farthest corner of my mind are the silver linings of my lifetime. They’re waiting for me inside the silver mine anytime I need to go see.

In the silver mine of my mind are my golden memories.

--me strauss Letting me be

The Green, Green Grass

I walk across the green, green grass. It’s nor really my own backyard. It’s not really my own big, big tree. But the space is so full and the green, green grass rolls softly forward in an easy way. The air fills my lungs with the thoughts and the dreams of a child playing outside inside her imagination . I watch the grass as I walk on it gently. It's a need to let the creatures who have a tiny home near my feet to keep a life that remains undisturbed.

A butterfly passes. I smile remembering butterflies I could never catch. Butterfly nets are for catching air.

Hear the music. It’s children laughing. Hear the melody of many families on a picnic. Ah the folks lined up, tossing eggs in a silly contest. I once enjoyed that game and knew the secret to winning. It's a knowing smile that fuels the small dance I do – step across, slide, turn. Spin with my arms out full like a first grader. Eyes are closed to take in the feeling. Face is open and fully toward heaven. Turning, turning, turning.

If I go the other way, I’ll get un-dizzy. I do just that and it works because I believe.

As I get closer to the single tree, I walk more slowly, taking in its majestic silence. Branches so wide that no neighborhood could contain it. A big, big royal tree needs a rolling field to hold court. It deserves nothing less than this a carpet of green, green grass. My mind hears a lawn mower from years ago. I think of spring. Children playing baseball in summer clothes are almost visible out the corner of my eye the second that I imagine them. I hear the crack of the bat on the ball.

I breathe deep like fish, pulling oxygen like water into every cell of me.

Slow walking, slow to the tree walking, I see no cars, no trucks, no machines -- no cell phones, no computers. I like the look of that. I like the cloudless sky and the feeling that time hasn't touched this place.


I meet the tree. I run my fingers up and down the black, black bark of it. I can't help but put myarms around it. I rest my face on the side of the royal majestic tree, the way I once did on the chest of my father when we would talk. Then I sit with my back againt it.

I take out my journal and write for a while.

A place without machines is filled with rainbows, magic, and daydreaming. I find myself in a time machine of wonder.

They say don't chase rainbows. They say magic doesn’t exist. They say daydreaming isn't real.
They don’t about the green, green grass by the tree too big for a neighborhood to contain it.

--me strauss Letting me be

The Rhythm of the Rowing – Part 2

It's time to go back to where I started, back to where my feet feel the ground, where my skin is my skin and it fits perfectly.

I say good bye to the castle. It was a dream I was living in. I say good bye to the sky, to shore, to the rocks and the sand where I drew my heart. I walk to the rowboat, catch my breath and climb in. I feel the fear of my feet leaving the ground, that they love, that they know.

I take the oars in my hands, not so foreign this time, but not welcome -- nor will they ever be. I push away slowly, hearing the waves hit shore with slap. The noise of crash in my ears is a frown. I calm myself, and I drift out and in again like the waves. I find that place inside where I don’t care about progress now. I find the stillness of myself and use it to steady the boat as it moves slowly off.

I’m back on the water, but not rowing. I’m on my own, learning to breathe on the sea. I'm getting used to the rocking, getting used to the loss of ground once more. I know this place, this place without. I let myself find myself. Then I at last I start to row.

The rhythm starts to take me, to take me back where I am going. I am the rhythm, the rhuthm of the rowing. I am the going. Going is what I’m about. Every stroke that I row is a little calmer, a little sweeter, a little closer to my destination, the place I left whole.

The rhythm of the rowing will take me there. I will find my sky. It will hold the sun that rises and sets on my old oak tree. I’ll find the moon that was hung to keep me safe when I sleep. I left the castle and the sand and the rocks on the shore of the dream that I had. It's time to go back where my feet feel the ground.

But I won’t forget the translucent light of a white tulip an angel left for me.

−me strauss Letting me be

A Life-Long Friend Who Knows Me

I draw a heart in the white sand. I sit for the longest time looking at it.

I am lost in confusion. I am stuck in the visio. My heart is open, in plain view for the naked eye. Yet so many people cannot see it, don't believe it. They see what they fear. They see what other hearts have held or haven’t. They see only another heart that can’t be trusted, another heart that will fail.

I brush a tear from my eye. I brush away the sand heart that I have drawn.

I look at the sand. It seems empty. Heartless. I think about how the world needs more love, compassion and forgiveness. I keep staring at the empty space where the heartful of feeling once was, wondering at the folks who have conception of what that is.

A woman comes up beside me. Without a word, she sits. She picks up stick and draws an open heart again, right where I did. It takes over the view before my eyes. It's a symbol, a reality.

“It looks like you,” she says, though she stare out at the water.
I look over to see is a life-long friend who knows me.

−me strauss Letting me be

Falling in Love with Rocks

The rocks sit along the sea, getting washed by the tides each morning and evening. How round, how clean, and how colorful they are, even under the gray, gray sky.

See them. Aren't they so individual and uniquely beautiful?

The rocks remind me of some that I still dearly love.

In my landscaped garden in Massachusetts, one special garden spot was shaped the was a child would draw a simple house. Leading to the house garden was a mud path about three feet long and two feet wide. The path had railroad ties on either side. I made that a mosaic by filling it with small stones.

I found every stone in my back yard and carried it to it’s new home.

Stone hunting I would call it. I felt like a squirrel find food for the winter, as I walked around the backyard, looking for tiny rocks to add to my tiny project. The project transformed me and my relationship with rocks and stones.

I soon saw each stone as a possibility, an object of wonder. Sometimes I’d stand and turn the most usual rock around in my fingers again an again. I so enjoyed the point of imagining the colors, textures, of the stones when they would all be together.

Each stone took two or three minutes to place in that mud path, making that little mosaic took almost all summer.

I didn’t set or seal the path. I wanted it to last only as long as nature would have it. The garden was in a forest – a natural habitat. I didn’t need more than that.

I wasn’t making a path or even a mosaic anyway.

I was learning to fall in love with rocks. And I did a fine job at that.

See those rocks by the sea. Aren't they so individual and uniquely beautiful?

−me strauss Letting me be

Rainbows and Where You See Them

I have been to the place of profound hurting. Where the sky is bleak, forbidding, and totally inhumane. I have felt almost crushed beneath it. I know the sadness that makes a person’s blood move slowly. I know the pain that draws a curtain over things.

I know the awful place where the light of day only highlighted my worst weaknesses. The golden sun that so nourished me became something that hurt me. The flowers and trees said they aren’t meant for me. In that dastardly, hurting place, every thing living and nonliving scraped and tore at the person I thought I was. I was in the dark on the brightest day. My feelings collapsed inward crushing me.

No word could find its way out. I was stuck. I was stuck. I was stuck. I was stuck on an island inside a cave where I was safe but every color was black. When I was awake, I could move like I was alive, but mostly all I did was rock. The rhythm of the rocking might have been what saved me.

One day someone gave me a glimpse of color, a simple white flower. It was words that the world needs my voice in the choir. It was something that led to me knowing that I could leave the hurting place when I decided to. So first I made friends with that flower. Then I met a book and made friends with it too. It was different, kind of goldish shade if I remember.

In no time at all, I had a rainbow of colors – parts of the world that I love, things that I wanted to be with, things I no longer wanted to give up. That brought me out of the dastardly, hurting place, and what I found was a miracle of color.

Rainbows are where you see them. In the sunrise, in the sunset, in the eyes of the most frightened person, in the heart of the person who is going to be our next life-long friend.

−me strauss Letting me be.

Fully Grounded

I look out on the ocean, and I think how I never learned to swim.

I took the lessons. I passed and got the certificate. The paper has no meaning. I swim like a stone. I’m meant to stand at the ocean’s edge where the water and I might meet to share the same space.

I have to think that I didn’t learn to swim because my need not to learn was greater than my wish to conquer it. I understand, in a logical way, the abandon, the cool, fluid freedom from gravity that swimming has to offer. I realize the worlds that I will never encounter.

Still I cannot relinquish the connectedness I found when I first had my feet fully under me. It’s a connection I so dearly prize. I cannot give up. I cannot set it aside. I became part of the planet that day. My heart, my soul, my being won’t trade it. It is who I am.

My feet are part of the ground under me. My lungs are part of the air I breathe.

It’s not fear. It’s a “holding onto” the only boundaries I can rely on. After half a century I know. These boundaries – my feet on the ground and the air I breathe -- are a home base, a comfort for me.

Without my feet touching terra firma, my mind would float away, like a helium balloon let go. One idea, one passion, chasing and following, chasing and following, until any breeze could blow me, any hurricane could throw me. I need a home to return or I can't live with an open heart and a free spirit.

My mind needs the rest of me, and the rest of being, fully grounded − at least partially.

−me strauss Letting me be

The Funny Thing about Tulips

When I came out to get coffee, it was there on the counter, a single white tulip by itself in the morning light. It was almost angelic, translucent, glowing. It filled me with a feeling that went wide. It made think of the funny thing about tulips, how they seem to exist for our delight and joy.

Every spring the tulips come. They do seem to appear at once. What a show they put on!

Together they stand. Together they reach for the sun and bend in the breeze, gently without a thought, softly without a sigh. In some places they fill fields clear to the horizon, as if a painter has made them real, in the way of a baby's laugh. They’re like dancers, graceful and open hearted. They’re like souls without burden or care. No other flower is quite the same as they are. Fragile, dignified, light as air.

Yet for a tulip to grow into a beautiful flower, it lives in the dark, cold, cold ground from the first freeze until after the thaw. Without the dark, without freezing temperatures, the bulb won’t grow. It won’t make food for the flower. In the spring there would be only sad, lonely leaves.

And . . .

In the spring those flowers I see only last for a week, maybe two, not nearly as long as I dreamed they did, not nearly as long as I wished they would.

The funny thing about tulips is that a graceful, open-hearted flower would work so hard to exist for our delight and joy.

−me strauss Letting me be

Glory in the Almost Morning

I wake. I walk. I wander into the almost day. It’s almost there in that blue, that blue I only see at sunrise, that clear blue, that cerulean comfort color that goes out past the ocean to forever. It’s the feeling of being inside a whole note. It’s the experience of knowing water. It’s breathing without thinking, air intake automatically, a childhood of rhapsody.

I slide my feet along the bit of beach as I run my hand along the wall of the castle. I think how lovely that color is, and how people have never captured it. It’s too clear for any product, to filled with light for any art form. Music might describe it, but most folks wouldn’t know to listen. Most folks haven’t stopped to see. I wish myself surrounded by it, but that's not a human passtime.

Some colors God keeps just for himself. I ask him to send it to you in your dreams.

I wonder at the clarity of the backlit color that starts the day. Would it be nearly so wonderful without the orange-lit clouds nearby? They stand in waiting as it holds court for the morning sunrise.

I slide myself down onto the sand to watch the wonder. I listen to the rhythm of the waves. The world has so much comfort.

The marvelous blue fades to let the glory of the sun take over.

I walk. I wander back inside the castle. I find my way to my first cup of coffee.

I look out at a beautiful day.

I think how glory is such a small thing in the almost morning.

-me strauss Letting me be

Imagine That.

Everything that I think doesn't have to be real, doesn't have to be on the ground where people can see it. What a laugh that is! As if I could keep my feet firmly planted on concrete. As if I could live without thoughts of wishes, and hopes, and dreams that have made pictures in my mind since before I was able to talk.

The rhythm of the rowing, the melody of morning, the sights and sounds that nature brings on the waves, on the breeze, on the clouds passing over me. How could I let them just pass unnoticed? That would be a travesty.

Buildings, and streets, and cars, and machines are nothing compared to skies, and trees, and flowers, and . . . breathing. And my soul smiling with knowing. Thinking is hard without wonderful thoughts to interrupt me and twist me and turn me. Their gift and music that I have to offer. They're the song that I dance to when I write these words here.

I'm gonna row that boat with you in my heart. Just like a rocking chair on the waves, that boat will take us to a magical, healing place. We'll head out to a castle on a forgotten island. No one will be lonely with us gone away. Time will stop while we play. We'll have whatever we need to be safe.

We'll have drinks with umbrellas. We'll talk about myths and legends. We'll remember the things that we love. We make up lots of new ones. We'll laugh without stopping for days and days. We'll discover pure energy and learn how make whenever we need it.

We'll celebrate what we love about being alive.

Imagine that.

--me strauss Letting me be

The Rhythm of Rowing

I feel whole and on the right path. My answers are coming. My ideas are the right ones. My clothes are fitting and my skin is my own skin. My feet are under me, taking me forward into the vision.

And life tells me that I am not enough.

People call to me to say they're hurting.

Three people in less than 18 hours with sad, scary stories to tell me, asking me to listen, hoping for wisdom. Wisdom is what I long to offer them, but I fall way short of it.

No Zen sailing will not be on my agenda this day.

In my jeans and an old zipped up Gap sweatshirt with ink on the sleeve, I walk down to the dock in hope that the water will teach me. There waits the red rowboat -- an invitation. Can I face my fears? Can I be the only one in the rowboat on the big water, the one who can't swim, out there alone?

I climb into the boat and sit on the hard seat. I feel the boat swaying. I wish for my grounding. I wish for my friends to be around me. I wish for the courage to face where I'm going, to know what I know -- that I'm unprepared for what I'll be doing.

I pick up the oars and hold them in my hands. I know at first touch. They're too big for me, too heavy, too much. That's no consolation, no remedy. I hold them. I pray. I look at the sky that shelters me. Then I breathe. Then I breathe. Then I breathe once more.

I untie the boat. I use my hands, then an oar to slowly push away. I let the boat float on its own, as I get used to the feeling of motion. I get used to the idea that I won't be turning back. I need to know this or I can't help anyone.

Slowly I place the oars in the water. I ask permission without words, but through the grace and gentleness of my movement. I ask for faith from sky and angels who are everywhere. I need the wisdom of one who has conquered fear.

It takes a while, but I learn the rhythm of rowing. It takes a while, but I forget myself and learn about what I'm doing. I get to be one, inside my situation. I start to understand that the wisdom is only the knowing. I lose my self-consciousness and let my cells take over the understanding of what is needed, and suddenly, it's a dance with the water -- with no one leading.

Inside the fear is the graceful wisdom I was seeking.

My help will be the rhythm of rowing.

me strauss Letting me be

Crayons and the World

All of my life I've been wondering about crayons. I know I've said that so many times before. When I was a child it was a somewhat literal thought. All of the colors are so unique and beautiful. Each color has a presence of its own.

But those wonderings were also imagination. I could change the color of the sky in my world. I could color the flowers red, orange, and yellow. I could make them all shades of magnificent blues.

All of our eyes see color in a slight different way. Science has shown that. And who knows whether my concept of red is the same or even near yours. Yet, we can all play with our crayons can draw a vision of wonder.

We can use crayons to change the world.

--me strauss Letting me be

Poetry and the Taps

I don't have a picture of my first tap shoes. They were white as everyone's were. When we bought them brand new, shiny bright. They came with an inch-wide grograin ribbon that went through the two holes and tied into a beautiful bow. Of course that had to be replaced with something more function for a three-year-old child. Out came the ribbon. In went a loop of inch-wide elastic. It was the same as everyone's. Dancers in our dancing school looked alike as a rule.

I took to tap dancing right away. It was mathematical. It was like talking with my feet. The steps had names with syllables that matched the taps they made. Shuf-fle, shuf-fle, ball, change. Step, dig, step. Step, dig, step. They matched the words they made.

My friend, Peg, said I write poetry because of the math. I'll have to tell her that it's also because of the taps.

--me strauss Letting me be

Like Rollerskates

On the bed
in my childhood room
was a white chenille bedspread
I used to run my fingers across it.
It was like rollerskating.
You could still feel it
when you stopped.
I would look at my hands
filled with the sensation.
It was amazing.
The deep purple corduroy bedspread
that I picked out later
was even more thrilling.

--me strauss Letting me be

Out My Window

It's January, but the sun is shining on the harbor. I look out my window, and the colors of an orange to pink sunrise surprise and delight me. I stare at a sky of possibility that changes by the second. The water, the windows next to mine, reflect back brilliant color.

I sip my fresh, new coffee at the window. I don't usually do that, but this sunrise, that you wouldn't believe unless you saw it, has the power to transport me. I think it's time I let it. So as I stand at my window, I let my reality go, and I follow my imagination.

I see myself down on the dock, walking in the sunrise. I don't need a coat as I drink in the blue, becoming bluer, of the water with what I didn't know were my so hungry eyes. I walk. I stroll. I place my feet just so between the board on the dock, remembering the fun of being 5 years old. I revel in the space of a world that has sunrises.

I walk right from that dock to the riverbank of my childhood. That takes me to the memories of my younger, older brother who taught me how to watch him when he was fishing. I smile to think about how my job at almost 9 years younger was officially that of watcher. He may have thought he tricked me. I won the reward of that job. I have the images. I have the wonder. I have the mornings like this to prove that.

The riverbank becomes the mountains in the spring with flowers blooming. I stretch out on my tummy, like I used to do to watch TV to get a close up of the crocus. I've gotten to be friends with these brave, little spring flowers that show even through the snow. They are a lot like sunrise. They are hope and proof that good things keep happening.

In with a deep breath, as the sky finally goes fully blue. I come back to the beautiful harbor that waits for boats that won't be back for months yet. I know that it's still January, but that's okay with me.

Every day has a sunrise out my window.

--me strauss Letting me be

Standing at the Fire

Standing outside the fire. Life is not tried. It is merely survived if you're standing outside the fire -- Garth Brooks.

I walk up to the fire on the beach. How could I not walk right up to it. It's warm on the cool, dark night. It's wild, on a mind that's quiet. I stand to watch. I stand at watch. It's a movie. It a memory. It's a fire in my heart. It's my spirit before me.

Yea for the diftwood that someone like me left behind for me to sit. I take my place and my eyes crawl all the way into the flames. I see my life most inside the firelight. The flame dancing around as I dance within it. Yeah, I've been both burned and warmed by the experience of being there.

But I breathe the air, and I flow with the river. I walk the earth. So I must feel the fire.

Life would be cold and distant, unattached and without wonder, if I spent my days standing outside the fire.

I walk in the fire head high, knowing I'm alive.

--me strauss Letting me be

Like So Many Chocolates

New Year . New Day. New thoughts running.

New ideas and new possibilities.

A sunrise, a baby's eyes, a smile.

New feelings. New beginnings.

Life stories to live and to remember.

New delights and cups of coffee.

Love and memories with family.

Friendships to discover, like so many delicious chocolates.

Happy New Year!

--me strauss Letting me be