You Might Not Know My Friends

You might not know my friends when you first meet them. You might not know them ever. But I know them well.

You might know them because you've never seen them, or talked to them, or listened as they tell the stories that make them who they are. Or maybe you have and you just weren't there.

You might not know my friends even if you met them as a child, gone to school with them, shared a house or worked in their store.

You may have spent years right next to them without seeing the friends I see.
I saw them within seconds -- sometimes before we said hello.

Is the same true of your friends?

We might never know.

letting me be, me liz strauss

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

For the Presence of a Child

They called him Seawall. He came from the south. He got up north on a train. He was a real hobo. Most of this life didn’t stay in one place too long. They called that wanderlust. Seawall found work where he could, doing what he had to do, and made his way from place to place by jumping trains. Somehow, some way, the last stop left him outside my dad’s saloon and that’s where he stayed.

Seawall did things for my dad. He scrubbed floors and carried in big bags of flour. He sorted bottles and cleaned up at night. He lived in the shack next to the tracks,− a lean-to really − slept on cot, just a chair and desk beside it. I went to see him there once with my dad. I think of slave quarters when I picture it, and then I think that today people might say he was homeless or that he needed mental help.

Seawall had no age, just a craggy face, an unassuming manner, and baggy pants that of that uniform unwrinkled teal-blue-gray color. He rode an old two-wheel bicycle. People around town knew him by it. People in the saloon did too.

At dinner time it was a memory to be part of the ritual of how Seewall put his bike away. He'd ride in the back door of my dad's saloon, take one ride around the entire tavern, and end his trip behind the bar. He'd lift the trap door, wave to the patrons, and carry his transportation down the old, wooden stairs to the musty dirt floor cellar to stow it for the night. He'd leave the cellar through the side door. Then he’d walk into the saloon through the front door as a patron, sit at the bar to eat his dinner and spend time with his adopted family before retiring for the night.

Even as a little girl, when I would see him sitting at bar, he looked like sad painting − a man living out his life. My mom often sat me by him. When she did I couldn't help but notice how his craggy face would fill with light − not for me, I don’t think − for the presence of a child. At least, that's how it felt. It was life recognizing life.

And what a gift he would give me − his smiling, clear blues in that craggy, sailor-like, weathered face. All of his past would fall away and I would be all that there was. He would play that awful game − tic tac toe − with me for hours just to see me smile back. Seewall was my friend. He looked forward to seeing me. I looked forward to seeing him. We were safe with each other. We didn't need to talk. We smiled.

I was too young to know that people had stories. Even now I only know bits of his. I wish I’d learn the rest of his one day. My brother said his real name was Sewell Southward Sebastian Fleming the Third. I wonder if anyone remembers what his real name was? He lost his name in the Great American Depression after he lost his job, after he boarded that first boxcar.

I remember that he could talk like Donald Duck and make me laugh.

−me strauss Letting me be