Wishing in the Dead of Winter

Ever really look at a grape hyacinth? It's a wish. It's a wonder. It's a full-color happening.

After a cold, cold, gray, gray winter, a few breaths past the first crocus, you might see one -- tiny thing. I used to wish them larger. I'd think of them as almost tiny trees. I wanted to stand under a grape hyacinth and look up into it the way I did other trees.

Such tiny things, I walk past without noticing their splendor. Where else do I see such vibrant blue, lush and full with life? When else does such a lovely gift come at such a perfect time?

So lacy and delicate. So full like the grapes their named after. So like an umbrella that became a delight. So blue that they overtake my imagination.

How could I possibly walk right by?

I'm wishing in the dead of winter for grape hyacinths.

I might never be able to look up from under one.

This spring I might give it a try anyway.

--me liz strauss, letting me be

Golden

When I close my eyes, when I look inside, I look for the hole in my thinking.

It's not the hole of what's missing. It's the whole of the vision. It's the view to what I'm feeling.

I have to wait. Relax. Reflect. Look. Listen. Look again. Then I see all of the moving things inside my eyelids begin moving.

They move apart. They separate. A tiny hole they make. I look through that hole and see a whole vision.

It's the way to my feelings, my future. It's golden.

--me liz strauss, letting me be

Gone there

The best part is I don't need an airplane. I just lean back in my chair, close my eyes, and I go there.

It's a perfect blue day with a perfect blue sky. Time's as open and wide as the ocean.

It might take a while in the night behind my eyelids to find the hole through to the light and the long sandy beach. But soon enough I feel the ground giving back. It's sand under the sneakers on my feet.

I follow the footprints, little three-part Vs that make curves and swirls on the shore where the birds have been. I hold my journal in my hand, wondering what it's for as I empty my mind into the expanse.

Then I sit and stare, letting thoughts pass by on the breeze that the ocean brings. I don't catch one. They don't stick or stay one. I know what it means to be free.

And the best part is that I don't need an airplane to go there.

There is me.

--me liz strauss, letting me be

Time and a Word

There's a time
and the time is right for me
It's right for me
and the time is now.

There's a word

and the word is love

and it's right for me.

It's right for me

and the word is love.
--YES, Time and a Word

When I had time, finding the word that was right for me, right for me, took such a time. What I could find were the words that belonged all around me, the words that confounded me, the words that weren't mine.

Then when I found the word, I lost place again. I lost my sense of when and who I was. I wandered and looked, wondered and still came back to the same word, but I was again fighting time.

Then finally I stood to say "This is my time, my turn."

There's a time and a word that are right for me, they're right for me.

Time and a word.
--me liz strauss, letting me be