Calling Scatterlings

Finding an old friend again after time has gone by, can be joyous, resetting the world in a softer fashion. The relief of a welcome embrace can erase almost any self-doubting question. Yet I hear, I feel, the slight fear, the small hesitation. Am I really here? Is it really you? Will you be glad that you came? Will you recognize me?

Seeing a friend again is like a first date with someone I’ve admired from far away, wishing to share a meal or a drink and conversation. I've already wondered what we would talk about if that ever happened. When I meet a dear friend again, the joy is fragile with echoes of talk of what we haven't been sharing.

Passing time has a way of making a silence, a void, an open space unexplained, eventsunshared; ideas spent elsewhere; people met; faces, smiles, and history without the words included. Does that mean something -- a change; or nothing -- the same? Finally knowing that truth will be an easy thing. Finding out is a monster of imagination.

How do we locate the bridge to the old conversation? I worry that you're afraid I will be wanting, needing, wishing for things gone by, things no longer, a "we" that used to exist. How do we get to new things based on the beauty of old history?

Surely the bond of connection, the stories of scatterlings that made the bell sing, the music that made it okay to share secrets is still forged and truly there. Every link held out danger in the night when needed to meet, holding tears and thoughts safe in the cabin up the path under the trees. Together was powerfully moving, life changing, remarkable, unforgettable, and unique. How do we move forward? How do we find the new road? How do I tell you I see the same things you see?

Here I am again needing to be brave and vulnerable. Yet it's a new version of me meeting a new version of you.

I hear the bell at the cabin ringing, singing. Calling to scatterlings, recalling memories.

Finding an old friend is worth every scary second of saying hello again.

−me strauss Letting me be

The Lady Julia's Birthday Gift

That first time I heard her name, Richard said, “Had you been born in Australia, you would be her.” Her name was Julia, Julia Stanton. It was a name with strength, and honesty, and music, a name an author might give a character. I liked saying it, hearing it, and imagining the person who owned it.

Vincent called it “airing out.” It was a ritual that started when I was commuting from California to Massachusetts – my friends, Margaret and Vincent had taken me in as family in their extra bedroom. Every Sunday we’d take a road trip three hours or so up to Maine, find a restaurant on the oceanfront, and talk the afternoon away. I love them for every detail of every moment of every Sunday to Sunday and in-between them.

It’s true that airing out makes breathing easier during the week.

During those days is when I actually met Julia in person. We met in England where she lives today and shared dinner with Richard. It was 11 years since I’d first heard her name. When we met I saw immediately why Richard had said what he’d said about us. Few would see or say the same thing, but there’s a place where Julia and I are exactly the same.

Margaret and Vincent heard stories about Julia. Julia heard stories about them. That trading of tales went on until Julia came around the time of my birthday, her own just a few weeks away.. For birthdays’ sake, we set out together for an “airing out Sunday,” with Julia.

Before lunch, we stopped at a beautiful spot in Hampton Beach. We all walked along the sidewalk between the sand and the street. While Margaret, Vincent, and Julia talked,

I walked off to put the sand under my sneakers. The feedback was marvelous. As I neared the water I became peaceful, crawling further and further into my eyes. The mansion before the purple sky on the hill is still fixed in my mind and held me still staring at it. I was surrounded on three sides by sky. On three sides there land reaching around me and out to touch the water, keeping the statue of me in safe harbor. As I felt the sea breeze of the ocean breathing, three dear and lifelong friends were behind watching over me.

“Is she okay?” Julia asked.
“Oh yes,” Margaret said.

And I was very much okay. I was in the center of creation. On my way to the three I stopped to pick up to granite stones. One was large one was smaller, I took them to Julia.

“Happy Birthday to both of us, Julia. I’d like you to have this little stone to remember this day by. I promise I’ll keep mine until you tell me you no longer have yours.”

Julia Stanton got married this summer in a castle to a wonderful man I think who loves her. He’s wonderful and they are wonderful together. I call her the Lady Julia and him Lord David. I can imagine her coming down castle stairs to him. She and he both deserve such a lovely dream come true.

I’m holding that granite stone now eight years later. I’ll keep it until she tells me she doesn’t have hers.

−me strauss Letting me be

Asking for Help

I suppose asking for help doesn’t come easily for anyone. Surely that must true. We all must think of ourselves as able to find our way on our own, helping others . . . not the ones needing help.

Need seems to place us lower than we might want to be. It takes us back to that dependency where we were, reaching up with a hand, reaching for someone stronger, smarter, more powerful, more adept than we are.

That’s the thought, the learning that I’m unraveling now. It doesn’t have to feel that way.

Reaching out for help doesn’t mean reaching up for strength.

Am I strong enough in my sense of self to believe that?
Can I ask for help and feel I’m not becoming dependent?

Of course I can. I can stand by your side and lean on you, knowing you’ll lean on me when you feel the same need.

You and I do that without thinking.

Asking for help is faith and trust. It’s something to live up to both ways. It makes us stronger, gentler, gives us grace.

I am learning how to become a human being. It takes help.

All I had to do was ask.

−me strauss Letting me be

Finding a Friend

She is a self-proclaimed, literal person. What you see is what you get and to her things need proportions that work well together. She’d spent enough time with me in the 3-D world that I was a person she cared about. I had form that was real and fully filled out.

When she came to visit the virtual version, she said that I wasn’t me.

Not me? You're kidding?

But for her it was true.

It couldn’t be real for her. She said I didn’t talk like this when we sat on her back porch on Saturday evenings drinking wine or when we shared so many Sunday afternoons at restaurant tables discussing the world, creativity, and books.

She had me there.

But . . .

Is that me more me than this me or this me more me than that? Of course not.

But . . .

We find our friends in the sweet psychic place where we meet, by the safe, silent spot where we can be who we are. We long for that, need that, and get to know them and ourselves by and through that place where we meet, that place where we are.

When that goes away, our world is twisted and shaken until we can explain where it went − even then, the loss of that safe, sweet, silent spot remains an absence, an open place we feel. It's something missing that never gets filled unless that very friend finds us again.

Because to express who we are is a gift and a mystery that needs a friend and a a safe, silent spot to find each other in. Our friends hold us, and hold us up, and hold our hands in their hearts without thinking, judging, or looking too closely. It's doing the math without acting mathematically.

She didn't find the safe, silent sharing spot with my virtual me that conversation has built into our lifelong three-dimensional friendship.

But . . .

Every word that I share is an expression of who I am.

All of my words are me −inside and out of our lovely safe silent spot.

Every friend I have sees a different lovely safe, silent spot.

Perhaps we are meant to find a friend for all of the words we need to share.

−me strauss Letting me be