Lines and People

I've always been fascinated by lines. I like how they separate and define spaces, how they turn as you move to change your perspective. I like the ways lines can become their own spaces between spaces. With a little imagination, lines can take me places in the same ways that lines move my eyes.

Lines are like people in the way that lines that have a purpose are more interesting than lines that do not. Randomness is lovely in people and lines, but lack of commitment is not.

Lines can enclose safe spaces or draw boundaries that give meaning.

Perhaps that's what people are doing when they draw lines around themselves.

Lines are filled with power and potential, like people.

And some have rough edges ...
But the ones that get softer over time, or in certain lights, I admire.

-- letting me be, me liz strauss

A Blind Eye

I get self-conscious when people look at me. I wonder what they’re seeing. I wonder what they’re looking at. I wonder how I look to them. Are they overlooking something important? Are they making assumptions?

Can they see what I’m not saying − what I’m wondering, thinking, wishing, praying, what I’m hoping they’ll extrapolate from the weird, kind of nervous behaviors that I make?

I care too much when strangers look.

In the best circumstances, I get a chance to unfold one-to-one, talking about a mutual interest. Make that a crowd and I might have to blend with the walls for safety. Hopefully I’m over trying too hard to fit myself in. I worry that I’m not.

But are they? Are they really looking at me? Probably not. I’m the one pointing their eyes this way. They aren’t. They can’t be seeing the tiny cracks I’ve always worried about. Why would they have such interest in such small things? Major ideas in my life are details in their world. My details are off their radar completely.

People are overlooking me entirely. This worrying about what they see is energy wasted, wearing me out unnecessarily, triggering noisy “look at me” behaviors that don’t define me, that get folks to look away, that make them and me uncomfortable.

I do them so folks will go away, so I can breathe. Isn't that strange? I get myself unable to breathe worrying about things that people, who aren't looking at me, are seeing.

Sometimes I marvelously over-think things, especially when I put myself in the center of the universe. How much more out-of-focus could my vision get?

I overlooked, looked right through, looked right past each person.
I didn't look in anyone’s eyes, not a single person’s.

I was a blind eye that made assumptions. That's the irony.

When I see people, I don't worry about what they are looking at.

Looking and seeing are different things.

−me strauss Letting me be

Small Town Girl

You don’t really understand the place you grow until you’re gone long enough. Long enough is when you can see with the eyes of one who's never been there. It's a new place when you walk down the street and your name rings no bells, when places are memories, some no longer there. Then you begin to know where you’re from and something about who you are.

Growing up in a small town isn’t something I thought about. It was just how things were.

A small town is a small universe. It has no galaxies. It barely has solar systems. Small town stars just aren’t strong enough to get planets to orbit them not for long.

It’s the way of small towns to attract individuals not crowds, or maybe crowds don’t form because there aren't enough people. Every small town crowd is really made of tiny clusters of ones or twos or threes that happen to be together.

What that means is that the bikers, the theater folks, the dancers, the nerds, the geek, the jocks, the gays, the uptight, the laidback, and the “in-between, self-conscious-I-don’t-knowers,” all know each other/ We all talked and interacted in ways that we never would have if there were more of each of our own kind to hang out with. Instead we all learned how to talk to each other. We couldn’t help but learn.

I had no idea what that small town was teaching me about people.

−me strauss Letting me strauss