Breathing Lessons

Today I stuck my small journal in my back pocket; tied my sneakers; and slowly, serenely slow, I slid into my jacket. My work, my things could wait. I needed to know the feel of the planet beneath my feet. Today is different. Everywhere I go it's with me. Life is a road I walk to wherever I want to be. Where I want to be is here with me. I see every bit of life around me. I breathe.

Breath with me. Breathe with me. Celebrate.

I'm on road and, time is life, love, forever.

The trees can hear the musical voices singing in my head. They are in my head too, but my feet are moving, over each other in happy step, glad to be inside my shoes and outide in the world. My heart is hanging out, bouncing with heavenly things tapping their way around the keys. This love, life is dancing down my road with me.

Breate with me. Come on and breathe this life, this love, this joy. We don't need a reason, except to be. The sun feels warm. The breeze feels fee. Time has no wish to own me . . . or you.

It is green as the leaves. It's blue as the sky. It's as wide a heart can open.
Celegrate and breathe. Because everywhere we go., life is there.

Today is different, and so are we. Breathe with me. Dance down my road a few 1000 feet. Celebrate. Breathe with me.

It's a miracle with trying

Breathe with me.

Life is love.

Today is different.

Everywhere I go it's with me.

Life is a road to where I want to be. Wherever I want to be is here with me.

I see every bit of life around me, the trees, the sky, myself, you. I breathe.

Breathe

with

me.

--me strauss Letting me be

Leaving Tracks in the Sand

On a Sunday, we would pack ourselves up and climb into the car together. It was three of us who needed airing out. He'd drive. I'd take shot gun. She'd sit in the back. staring out the window. It was like a movie to her -- a visual feast, refueling for her eyes.

He and I would talk relentlessly on our 3 or 4 hour drive. We would snack on our words as if they were treats of candy, as if the view through the windshield were a moving picture, and we were two kids who had no reason to give it our attention.

Her silence in the back seat, staring out the window was her rest for the week. It also was like a movie to her -- a visual feast, refueling for her eyes. Our noise and chatter let her know she wasn't alone. She had brought home along with her.

When we arrived in the destination town, we would go to the beach before the restaurant. Then it was my turn to find the space where I was one. I'd saunter out to the sand along the shore where the birds had been at sunrise. He and she would stay at streetside. I'd walk the sand, pushing my feet into it, feeling it give back to me.

And as I did I made tracks in the sand in between those that looked something like this ->-.
And I would think, It's okay to be a rare bird, leaving tracks in the sand.

--me strauss Letting me be

Not Clueless Anymore

When I was in college, we had a saying, a sweet and careful tease, "What color IS the sky in your world?" We gave to gave to each other when someone said something that was cluelessly off course. We'd laugh and smile and often get answer. Purple, green, and gold were popular.

At each answer I gave or got, I would imagine a world with a sky that color. The image was always clear and filled with wonder. It was a breath. It was a breeze. a hug with friends around me. , It was a fleeting pleasure. How could I know how refreshing, how refueling, how fun it was? I didn't know because . . .

Because back then I only thought a young person's thoughts.

Then awake at sunrise, I saw the color of a boy's eyes. We would still be up and talking, greeting morning as an ending. It was feeling the longing of trying to pack another second into the swiftly, sliding, waning minutes that would see him gone. The sky was blue by then.

Now I see the sunrise from a black beginning. It's a wholesome, open , spacious feeling. Every color fades in for me to savor one-by-one. Life is the flavor of coffee. Work is the ideas stretching out into the day that lays itself out on the lake before me. It's a glory and a stroke of genius every morning.

What color is the sky in my world? is not a clueless question anymore.

--me strauss Letting me be

In Just a Minute

In just a minute, I will look out the window to see the sky, above a lake that goes on forever. In just a minute . . . in one more minute, I will take a look at something that people could never make or imagine in their wildest dreams.

There it waits for me over my shoulder. I can hear it in the silence of my mind stretching, breathing. I can feel in the space between my fingers as I type this line that I am thinking. In just a minute, I will be back inside me . . . and again outside my window, dreaming as I did when I was just a kid saying to my mom I would go to bed, "in just a minute."

In just one more minute, I will be.

I will be in just one minute.

--me strauss Letting me be

Safe and Flying

Like a flag waving in the wild breeze, I am flying. I don't worry. I don't fret. I am held to the support and yet, I can let the wind carry me -- every color that I am. Iam.

Every color that I am is floating in the wind. I am flying. Every color that I am is bouncing back again. I am flying. Were I to try to control it, I would only be fearful and falling.

I'm safe with my life. Every color that I am is vibrant and flying.

I have no beginning, no end. I am colors. I am safe. I am flying.

--me strauss Letting me be

Howl at the Moon

I read the story. I felt sorry. My heart hurt. My eyes hurt. I felt bad from the inside out to think something sad had happened to you.

I walked around in a bit of a moment. My fingers frowned and couldn't find the keys to type. I heard you say that you didn't want to share the story. I heard you not say that you hurt, but I hurt for you. All of the brave and the vulnerable realities swelled up to look at me and they wondered if I knew what to be on about, when a friend lost a friend that he cared about.

We only get a few who understand us and love us the way that we come, packed and broken, with tears at the seams. It's a bittersweet melancholy that takes one of them off to be waiting for us to follow. Can we follow? I'm feeling lost and slow and like I have not learned to sing. That's not right. It was your loss, not mine.

Oh where are the stars when a boy needs walk through the snow at night? I need to go even if only in my mind. Sometimes a hand to hold is a sparkling light, that can reignite and warm a heart. Sometimes a thought in the cold winter night that is crisp when the rest of the world sleeps the sleep of no cares can be caught just right by a heart that is needing a thought. Sometimes it can be delivered like a kiss on the air.

How is it I come to stand at my ice covered window? How does the past, the present, the future so call to me? What words do I have to answer the yearning, the question, the wondering about the wellness of every one that I love?

Left alone thinking on a winter night. I read the story again. I hear you talk through all of the math that really said. Don't look. Don't listen too hard, please. You might see. You might hear.

That's why I'm sorry. That's how I finally understand why dogs howl at the moon.

All of my brave and vulnerable howls at the moon, tonight.

--me strauss Leting me be

25 Words: The Gold Grass

If I could turn snow into
a golden field under
a steel blue sky of wonder
I'd revel in color and
breathe in its beauty.

--me strauss Letting me be

Eyes that Want To See the Silent Snow

Silent snow. That's the first that I notice how the world is muffled by the insulation of the whiteness. The air is still and so is my mind when the snow has made the world go quiet. A winter day can almost seem appealing, no matter how cold, no matter how the temperature tells me the branches on the trees are brittle and slowly freezing. I look out my wind from the darkness and wonder Is that what it's like to get old?

I dress myself with three sweaters over my long underwear. I cannot take the cold any longer -- not that I liked it when I was a child. Now it seems to want to settle in me and stay there. Yet, I'm draw outside as if the outside is really where my inside is. I want to be part of the quiet. I open the back and walk to hear, to hear the silence. The blessed sound of air as still as before the world was born.

My feet crunch on the frozen snow. It's an affront. I stop. The bright, white light hurts my light blues. I close them and hear a lovely melody of the softest tones. It rolls and ranges slightly higher and my spirits sing along with it. I think of how brown eyes have more pigment and smile knowing that my blue eyes so match the scene I'm in, that I don't mind waiting a second longer. I do and then.

I open my blue eyes to take in the bluest sky of winter.

The cold and silent snow, like life, like love, can be breathtaking and painful in it's stark silent beauty. It needs patience and eyes that want to see it.

--me strauss Letting me strauss

Self Consciousness

We were walking through Denver airport. It was warm, almost stifling, and our pace was a healthy clip. It was my husband, my 4-year-old son, and me. My son was holding my hand. He was obviously getting steamy inside his down-filled jacket.

As we walked, I asked him, "Would you like to take off your jacket? It's pretyy hot in here. Isn't it?"

As soon as I finsihed my question. My son stopped cold in his track answered with only one word, "NO!"

I stopped, turned, looked at him with concern. "Are you sure? What's the matter with taking off your jacket?"

"Then everyone will be able to see what color my shirt is," said my painfully shy little boy.

Since that day, "seeing what color my shirt is" has been my definition of self-consciousness.

--me strauss Letting me be

In Living Color

Some days it may seem that you wake in another world, that this other world, has no color. You may feel as if you have called down a winter of cold, cold weather . . . a dark gray sky of a black and white day night, that just won't come together with any color, sunshine, or light. Somehow deep in your psyche you are certain that you are stranded there, and you're just as sure that you deserve to be.

How could you possibly be in a world so foreign and unwelcoming? How could you wake one morning thinking you belong there?

I'm here to say. It just isn't true. You can leave.

All you need to do is take a deep breath, remember someone you love, and act as if you believe.

Act as if you believe the sun is shining, and suddenly you'll feel just a little bit warmer and brighter.

Act as if you believe the clouds are whitening, and you'll feel just that much lighter.

Act as if you believe that you can color the sky any color, and soon you'll start to see bits of white shining, and then pink, orange, and lavender.

Oh. then. Oh.

You won't be acting anymore. You'll be believing in living color.

--me strauss Letting me be

Yellow Gerbera

She's just a little off center.

I'm just a little off center. Always have been, listing just right of where a ship should be. Or maybe it's left.

Actually, I've never stopped to pay much attention. It's hard for me. I can't quite figure out where the line is. Just when I find it, a butterfly catches me, and that line in a new direction. Like a rope, it twists and turns. Like a wanderer, I follow it 'round and 'round, over, under, and through the things that I have to do.

I don't really like standing up straight. I like leaning. I like stretching, dancing, figuring out where my brain might take when I'm not really thinking.

What I could be a big yellow flower against a blue, lavendar sky?

I have the space I need to feel every part of me. I'd have the sky to keep me company. I'd know the feeling of being without thinking. What a lovely idea that was.

It was only a little off center. Not enough to worry about.

--me strauss Letting me be

Fast

Fast. life is moving fast. I know the world is turning faster than a life that I am used to and I am breathing as slowly as I can. We're working, working, working to make things happen. So quickly things go by. A blur of color is my life.

How exciting to be me right now.

It's almost scary fun.

--me strauss Letting me be

Rainbow of Clouds Inside, Above, and All Around Me

Here it comes, a feeling, rolling in like clouds on a sunny blue day. It’s a lucky one. I can tell already. I can tell by the energy and the light, bright, childhood, “let’s go out and play” chemistry that seems to run through my inner being. I sit at my keyboard, thinking. Anyone could see me here. Totally and physically present. Except . . . I’m miles and a few decades away in my backyard.

My imagination is in charge of me. I’m most certainly not.

Creativity is a magic that overtakes me in a rush. It’s much like the way that it used to be when I ran down the hill of the vacant lot beside the house where I grew up. Feel the wind in my face. It’s as it’s meant feel. Feel the gravity pulling me. I’m almost flying with it, and I don’t hardly touch the ground. As I’m going all things that I pass by are simply a blur of colorful blends and splashes in my side view mirror.

Then I reach the bottom of that hill still running full out and puffing. Then I lay in the grass to savor the experience of having a brand new idea – that’s when the colors come. The idea bursts wide open., and suddenly, I fall back onto the ground, ecstatic!

I have a rainbow of amazing clouds inside, above, and all around me.

Nothing can explain the beauty of an idea being born.

−me strauss Letting me be

Facing Fear

Some fears I face head on with a vengeance. I am tall. I am a wonder. I am a dragon slayer on a quest. Most of these fears are in protection of others. Somehow it’s easier to take on the risk when I risk for someone else.

I have to think about what that means.

−me strauss Letting me be

A Story of I Love You

On a Saturday morning, when I was about 3 or 4 years-old, I was still sleeping, at least I think I was. It couldn't have been Saturday, because I had dancing lessons. It must been some other morning . . . . any day but Saturday.

I was tucked away in my bed. Just beyond my headboard was the doorway to my parents' room. A knocking sounded in the bedroom, a heavy man's hand on that headboard, and I heard my father's voice say, "Baby Doll, Can you hear me? Baby Doll Come on in here."

Well, I was up and into his bedroom. I jumped unto his bed, and we talked awhile. Then he sang my favorite songs. I like the "Big Rock Candy Mountain." It made me think of rock candy he bought me once so that I'd know what it was when we sang the song. I liked to sing the "Green Grass Grows All Around." We sang that one together. It lasts a very long, very long, very long time. He would make his voice way, way, way, way down low like it was in the ground.

Then, he grabbed me and held me in the biggest, tightest bear hug.

"Let me go, Daddy. Let me go!" I said, as I struggled to get free.

He laughed a jolly laugh. My mother came to see what the ruckus was.

"Mom, Mommy, help me. Help me."

"No," she said. "You got yourself into this mess. You find your way out."

"Let me go, Daddy. Let me go!" I said, as I struggled even harder. I knew it was useless.

He laughed and tickled me mercilessly.

"Let me go, Daddy. Let me go!" I begged.

"Give me three good reasons," he finally said, as he always did. Always three good reasons were his rule.

Then I knew I was about to be free.

The three good reasons were easy, and they always worked.

So I struggled just a little more.

Then I said them all in a row, reasons one, two, and three.

"I love you. I love you. I love you more than the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and the mountains, and the green, green, grass that grows around tree."

He let go, and I started tickling him.

After all he deserved it -- every bit of love.

--me strauss Letting me be

White Icing

I awoke to darkness. I do that most every morning. First moments, I find my way to the kitchen to start the coffee. It's an arc outward and then inward like an s-curve to my computer to wake it for a new day as well. Then I'm off the shower, while my machines get their morning routines underway. My how efficient we all are in the morning.

When I return to the kitchen the coffee is ready. I pour myself a cup and doctor it up just the way that I like it first thing in the morning. I've the whole house to myself and the world is alseep. I carry the coffee over through the outward arc and inward arc like s-curve to my desk where I begin to open windows on my computer machine.

I take long sip of my coffee. Oh, there is nothing quite so delicious so comforting as that first taste of coffee in the morning when the day is dark and the world is still asleep. Once my windows are open, I start to write answers to emails and questions that people have left me during the night. This part is easy. I don't really have to think.

Then over my shoulder comes a ray of light. Then over my shoulder comes a ray of light again. I adjust the blinds so that I can see the screen. I adjust the blinds again. I reach over and take a drink of my coffee and then I wake up to what I've been doing. I pull my cup to me and cup it inside my hands as I turn around in my swivel chair.

I slow my brain as I pull back the blinds to look out the lake that goes on and on. It is one wonderful, white expanse to the horizon. It should be blinding, or maybe boring, but it's not. Instead it's merely inspiring, stunning, and breath-takingly beautiful. Sparkling in the morning sun, the lake shows off as the city begins to wake in the morning,

It's as if I've discovered the white icing on my life.

--me strauss Letting me be

Rocks

Rocks are like the mountains of childhood. You can’t move one -- a boulder. You can’t see over them. Sometimes you climb a rock and feel on top of the world. Sometimes you climb one to get away from the world and sit above it, watching as the rest of the life interacts and you’re no longer part of it.

Rock, big hard, giant immovable mountain-size monster rocks can be a place for imagining, or detaching, or just sitting. They always made me wonder how they got to be where they were.

I could sit in the sun on a huge boulder, especially one that was alone in a field far from any stone that could be spied. Did someone push it here? Did it fall from the sky or slide up from the earth? Why this rock? Why here? I would worry like a mouse with crumbs in a clear plastic wrapper of thought.

I might even think about whether other folks think about rocks.

Would anyone be thinking whether I was thinking about rocks at this moment? If someone saw me would that someone think I was thinking important thoughts or would that person know I was just thinking about, wondering, tossing about the idea of . . .rocks.

I would wonder whether that person was wondering what I was thinking. Suppose I became her. Would I still be wondering about what she was thinking and if she became me would she still be thinking about rocks?

This must be what they mean by saying I have rocks in my head.

−me strauss Letting me be

A Wish, a Hope, and an Undying Belief

I find myself in a place where I wonder how I got here.
How I wonder!
How I wonder? . . . . I wonder as I travel up one hill and down another. I wander in and out through the trees of the forest that I cannot see, feeling safe under the canopy for one moment. Then feeling in an alien landscape that I must have dreamed up when I was asleep.

What was I thinking to take on this quest?

How could I possibly have done otherwise? It is the path that my life made me for. Touching the trees, feeling the bark under my hands as brush them, me the painter, me the dancer in a noble dance, I'm on a steed in the 17th century. An adventurer is an adventurer. Without adventure what kind of life would this simple day-to-day breathing be?

All of my risk is in my thinking and my fear of prosperity. I am the source of all generosity. I intend to climb that hill and smile my way to the most magnificent future.

It will be like castle in the 17th century. I’ll be carried there up a hill and down another. How? I will wonder. I will wander.

I will carry a wish, a hope, and an undying belief with me. They are the magic of every true adventurer.

−me strauss Letting me be

Conspiring and Puzzling Out

Back flat in the grass looking up through the trees, even on a sunny afternoon, it seemed like such a secret thing to do. Flat on my back on the riverbank used to be my favorite way, half horizontal, half veritcal. Even better was when my best friend was beside me and we were talking, conspiring.

Being there, flat with the ground, we were one with the ground. It was like . . . riding the planet. We could almost feel the breeze floating over us. We could imagine the stars up above the sky, up above the leaves of the tree that hung over us, blocking everything but the smallest space, where we’d glimpse some blue or some white.

At seven or eight, our problems weren’t problems. They were scraped knees and flat tires. They were getting in trouble for being late. They were waiting for the carnival to come to town or wishing for something truly original to imagine. We would make up mysteries for each other to solve, trying our darnedest to outsmart each other. A boy and a girl, perfectly matched, can do that for hours.

That was before life required problem solving. There was nothing we couldn’t fix just by puzzling it out together.

Sometimes, if I think of being under that tree conspiring and puzzling out -- whatever is worrying me takes on a whole new perspective.

−me strauss Letting me be

Fence in the Sky

Had someone asked me, Is it possible to fence in the sky?
I would have answered, Definitely not!
But now I see that, if you're sitting where this camera was sitting,
that's exactly what someone has done.

I bet the guy who put the fence doesn't know.
But the guy who can't see the sky can't forget the fence.

--me strauss Letting me be

Walking the Tracks

This side of forbidden
But they’re so stunning
The lines and the spaces
The movement imagined
I’m on the rails
walking,
one foot in front of the other
singing
one tune after another.

Fortunes are written
On wood so rotting
In gravel rectangles
The lifetimes realized
I’m on the trail
stalking
my feet in back of another
seeing
one time before my own.

--me strauss Letting me be

White and Blue

At times I need to forsake the words. Let them sit alone. Let them be. Be instead be with me in the open spaces with the places in my head where the color and the sky are language and the nuance. See the blue and white. Only blue and white are before me. Yet there is so much possibility. So many shades of ideas offering up themselves in subtle variety. They are waves that sound like the ocean breeze, a calming voice that quiets the words that used to haunt my head.

See the blue and the white. Beauty bespoken in only two colors.

Who would have thought a rainbow could be expressed in such simplicity?

--me strauss Letting me be

When People Are Stars

I think of the stars and I think of the sky, but not always. Stars shine. They shine with such force and such deliberate light.

I’ve learned to see stars in so many places. I see stars twinkling in children’s eyes when a youngster meets someone who has a grand smile. I’ve watched stars for hours as they sparkled on snowflakes, falling past the dark, indigo sky under lights of the city. Stars glitter up to me from the sand on the beach. Stars are a part of my life if I open my eyes to see them.

On the dandelion that I blew away, little motes like stars flew through the air in a wave. In the concrete of the street by the house where I grew up, stars of light glimmer in the glass that sits in the aggregate. Stars are cookies and stars are sprinkles sundaes and cakes. The petals of flowers in a vase spread out to make stars in colors that stars don’t usually make. I draw stars on a pad of paper as I speak to a friend on the telephone.

People are stars when they shine on each other. They almost glow when they let themselves be. A cosmic sparkle that gets their eyes a twinkling and their personalities shine luminescent with the light of a cosmic glow. When people are stars, they light up the world with their wonder and beauty. When people are stars, they give off a glimmer that makes Orion jealous of their complexity. When people are stars, other people know there is nothing, not a word, not a feeling, not a thought about them to fear.

To be with a person who is a star is like looking so closely at the right cactus. When you see the starry part that a person is made of, you see how soft and attractive a person can be. People and stars are a wonder. Both can be awe-inspiring.

−me strauss Letting me be

Positive People

Surround yourself with positive people
and positive things will happen.

Surround yourself with positive people
and positive things will happen.

Surround yourself with positive people
and positive things will happen.

--me strauss Letting me be

Intentional Dancing

I could be like the feathery motes on a dandelion, easily blown away. People, who see a as free spirit, already think that’s who I am. I could be like that . . . if I wanted. But I don’t want to be.

It is not my intention to get carried away on the breeze. I shoot the breeze. I stand in the wind. I’m was never meant to let any hurricane or tornado lift and take me to anyplace where I don’t intend to go.

I intend positivity. Positive people make positive things happen. I want. I will. I want to have positive people in my life. I will have positive things happen. I intend. I mean. Intend to make my a positive life. Positive things make a life light free. I mean to fill my life with them. I see. I will. I see no reason that why I cannot be or do what I set out to be or do. I will be someone who changes the world one person at a time.

The word intention literally means stretching toward. The word aspiration means breathing toward.

I intend to aspire to bend my knee and fly higher. I intend to become more and then imagine even more.

The possibilities are as big as my heart, as unconditional as my love, as generous as the rain in a cloud burst. I see the winning in a baby’s smile a glimpse before he laughs. I know the warmth inside of an idea growing, the colors pouring, blending and mixing, the way people might.

It is intentional I will be every bit alive.
It is intentional I will be like music.
It is intentional I will be absolutely filled with wonderment.

For I aspire to breathe deeply and to stretch every fiber to lose every pain that I hide.

I will let go the anxious weight that invisibly grounds me. My feathery dandelion soul will intentionally dance through the air to the blue of the sky.

−me strauss Letting me be

No Other Color

At this time, my eyes get hungry. I start to wish on the winter moonlight. I'm wishing there because the pale yellow is the most color that nature is offering me on these cabin fever nights.

I have to remind myself . . . to lighten, to brighten. The insidious lack of color has happened minute by minute, hourly. It’s gray dimness slowly siphons my positive disposition. A tremor, a turbulence, no . . . a timbre, that’s barely heard, whines over the lake, wondering . . . where they put them, who took them . . . the blue of the sky in day, the white of clouds hanging over it, the warm yellow sun shining love in wide opening rays, and that’s just what the lake sees is missing.

I’m feeling the loss of a lot more than that.

Red, give me the red of a cardinal in a tree that is lush with green, green leaves. I don’t need scarlet or crimson. Red, real red, the genuine article. What would it take for a cardinal to come visit for few minutes, please?

Like a bird that flies, my imagination comes to my rescue with a box of nature’s crayons and a play set of finger paints in the brightest shades.

I imagine a garden like Monet painted, all splashes, and pushes, and strokes, and get all stoked up just thinking of words to describe it. Reds, and yellows, and blues, and every shade of green, green leaves. Colorful crayon colors make room for a path to walk in between. Pinks, and oranges, and whites fill up every open space that there might have been.

I am typing rainbow words. I am breathing technicolor air.

The ultimate center of this kaleidoscope of exuberance is a special flower that’s been caught in a soft, summer rain. It stands open holding on to every drop of water with a gentleness only a flower can muster for holding bits of rain.

They call it a blue flower, but it’s not. I learned my colors when I first had crayons.

I cup my hands under it, and I think Yep there’s a reason that purple flowers are my favorite. No other color fills me up quite the same.

− me strauss Letting me be

So Simple

I first saw it in college, Someone cheated his brother out of $500.00, It was so outside my comprehension. My world view had to shift. I realized my sense of family is so strong, so much a part of my fiber, some folks' actions in a family context will never compute. Though we didn't share secrets, I suddenly saw that my family was close.

In my heart, it's okay not to like my family, but it's not okay not to love them.

It seems so simple.

No expectations. Respect instead.

But I was blessed with unconditional love from my father.

I started out with more.

That has to be the difference. There is no other explaining it.

I wish I could bottle up unconditional love and show folks how it works. It's not hard to love unconditionally. In fact, it's easier. It takes less energy to forgive than to be angry or anxious. It's a gift to yourself to be generous. Compassion helps a heart relax and beat stronger.

Yet folks wander, when they could be home safe wherever they are.

It seems so simple.

It's not hard to love unconditionally.

--me strauss Letting me strauss

Losing

In the last year I experience my first encounterwot with estrangement. It's hard for me to understand how parent and child can find themselves willing to let go of a common history. Their history IS their life. Yet, they turn their backs and say they don't care. Caring is not an option.

I am confused by it, confused by how they defend themselves with their fear, by calling it anger. How can they stand so assured that the other intends harm? They work so hard to reach so far, finding that negative idea to cling to.

One would think some great trauma brought this about. Some fierce and hurtful, mean battle must have burned this house. But no. It was air. It was nothing. It was irritation, impatience misplaced expectations. Choices made not to talk pushed generosity and forgiveness out of their lexicon, turning two that I love into spoiled children who demand things with no compassion.

The quality of mercy is not strained. Just now I understand what that means.

I frown with discouragement at my inability. Even my love can't convince them how they hurt themselves, not each other, can't show how much they give up, how they rail over a breeze and fret over raindrops, when they could just change the weather.

My parents are dead -- they died when I was 26 and 30 -- it was strange to think they were gone from the planet. They never saw my son. He never met them. He's only heard stories of their gifts and their wonder.

I think on this often and my thoughts just stare sadly at two who refuse to let the other win.

The irony is that there is nothing to win, but a lifetime of history to lose.

--me strauss Letting me be