Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Remarkable Footprints

I’d been watching the water since just about sun up. I’d been writing in my journal, thinking about life and stuff. A reoccurring theme kept playing in my head and on the page I was writing on. Like the waves on the ocean that theme kept repeating, repeating without regard to the sky, the sand, or my staring and wondering.

My life keeps circling round to lessons I’ve met before. The same mishaps keep happening. The same rugs keep getting pulled. Two years now had been as if all of the losing and learning had been wrapped and served up to me at once. This time it had come close to changing me. The concrete way down there was all that had kept the wolves from coming in.

I put my pencil down to watch the water. Watching was all I had been good at doing for quite a while there. I mentally let the waves wash away worries, clean off the weight of fears that I’d fought my through. I saw myself lean back on the surface to let my cares float to the sky to dissolve. The bubbles in the wavy foam would have done the same if they could have done what they wanted to. All things in nature know what they must do. People could learn something from that natural way of thinking.

People had told me I was too much or too little, too tall or too filled with feeling. They had made it clear that I couldn’t do what I do so well. I came close to actually believing them. What made me want to listen? What stopped me in the end from giving in, from giving up?

Who knows how long before I packed up my journal to walk back to life again. With a new resolve I set off. It was time to say, You’re wrong. I can. I will. Stand back, and watch me.

When I turned for a last look, I saw people caught in a conversation. They were gathered together at the path I had taken. Who could explain what they saw before them?

They were staring at remarkable footprints in the sand.
−me strauss Letting me strauss

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Liz, this post takes my breath away.

"ME" Liz Strauss said...

Good morning, Dawn.
Please start breathing. I need you in my world. :)

Tell No One said...

Liz,

Your highest idea, your grandest self goes with you in your thoughts.. I'm so happy that you don't wear invisible love... you see it, know it, accept it and understand how great it makes you. How much you can touch the lives of people close and far. You give me hope to see those things. To believe them.

Katrina

"ME" Liz Strauss said...

Katrina,
You give me hope right back. I can feel it in the words yuo say. I so believe in every bit of you. I've found a friend that I care about and love.

Anonymous said...

with tears streaming down my face, thank you, Liz.

"ME" Liz Strauss said...

Jessica,
You're welcome to all of me.