What They See

They see a flower
when they look
that’s what they see
a flower
tall and straight
soft and beautiful
greeting the sun
open to the bees
open to everyone
when they look
they see a flower
that’s what they see
a flower.
They think it’s me.
Am I what they see?
Am I what they perceive?

Am I what I have been?
Am I something between?
Does it sort itself out?
What does it mean

when they see the flower
and I know the roots tell the truth-laden story?
They see a flower. I feel the roots.
The roots are my power. The roots are my hold on life.

They see a flower. I feel the roots.

Whose perception is reality?

Whose reality is only perception?

They see a flower when they look.

that’s what they see, a flower.

They think it’s me.

−me strauss Letting me be

Setting My Feet to Run

When a powerful, wonderful, engaging idea grabs a hold of my mind, my thinking alters. I start seeing colors and possibilities that are "this close" tangible. The conceptual chemisty is magical. Cell upon cell ignites, passing charges across my synapses. I don't see myself. I don't feel time passing. I am inside the idea. I am train of thought speeding to a destination.

Energy dispels any self-consciousness, as my eyes turn inward to visuals of what the idea is, how it works, watching it tick and move. It’s not that different from a mother imagining a baby a few weeks into pregnancy. Yet it's different completely because my imagining becomes true.

When the idea is forming, I share the concept with caution so that folk listening catch a glimpse and understand what they’re seeing. One by one I approach people whose opinion I value, and I use words and metaphors to bring them into my dream. Each of the people I talk to offers a tiny revision, a little tweak. Each tweak makes the idea simpler, more elegant. The concept gets clearer and more intelligent.

My feet feel the feedback of the floor as I move from mind to mind, person to person letting all of them try on the concept. Do they need alternations to make it fit their world view? A few conversational nips and tucks and then, it suits them. It suits me. The process has smoothed out the rough edges. I turn my mind and my hands to crafting the idea in 3-D.

The idea begins to become a product, a service, a something that others can read and make use of. Before I can finish people are askng if they might try it.

Setting my feet to run, praying for the wings at my sides, this idea has it’s own vibrant life.

I’ve always known how get up to fight again when I fail.

What do you do when a dream idea becomes a living reality? What do you do when you succeed fabulously? I think I might have to know these answers soon.

−me strauss Letting me be

Believing Instead of Wishing

I was in an elevator in the UK, on my way to a meeting. A young lady who was chatting with me as we went to the conference room said, “You travel internationally. Oh that must be so glamorous.”

I smiled to myself, thinking I was her once. How do I tell her that it’s not without taking something from her?

Sometimes the words come out the way they should.

“Glamour is only glamour from far away. Up close it looks like life with all its warts. Even movie stars have bad days.”

She was a smart one, that young lady. She stopped and gave a thought. Then I saw her eyes smiling widely. “Yes, and I suppose that it’s ok for it to be that way. We look at them and they look at us – just as the king wishes he could be a person. I guess we need to know which one we want. It’s decisions that count not wishes.”

She was only twenty-five. I was older by a lot. By the time the elevator stopped she had become quite glamorous to me.

Glamour is about belief.

If I believe my dream, my wishes will become decisions.

−me strauss Letting me be