25 Words of Wisdom from Successful Blog

I made this using Slideoo at 90%.
The SlideShare version and explanation of the project is at 25 Words of Work / Life Wisdom — Pass It On!

25 words: Stare and Wonder

Hungry morning.
I look out my window yearning.
I see a sky offering food for my soul.
I stare. I wonder.

How did it know?

--me liz strauss, letting me be

People May Appear Further Than They Are

I waited. It was about an hour before we met up, when the call finally came. Then I had to call Andy to say that Paul had picked the BEAN as a meeting place. I didn't know Andy. I'd never met Paul or the gang he was bringing along. It seemed like the touristy thing to meet folks at the BEAN on the 4th of July, though.

We had these loose connections from online friends or crossing paths. By some weird star-like direction, we would gather for a beer and conversation as if we were long-lost friends.

I'd gotten ready for the call. When it came I put on my shoes and headed out the door. I wanted to be early so that I could look around. I'd only recently discovered that I could take a decent picture with my phone.

Twenty minutes early, I took my photograph reflecting off the BEAN. Then wandered to the garden and found some flowers who wanted to be part of what I was doing. One day it will be a maze taller than I am, but that day it was an amazing burst of purples, blues, greens, and an occasional red-orange. Got a few pictures before it was time to walk the gravel path back to the sidewalk that lead to the BEAN.

As I was walking, I realized I had worn my best boots to trek the gravel. I mindless wondered whether they would recover. Too late to worry. I wiped the dust off on the of my jeans.

As I walked up to the terrace around the stainless steel bean-shaped gate, a man talking on the phone smiled and waved. I said, "hello," hoping I knew him. Then, I hoped I had him pegged as the right one of the two. Luckily, the other guy phoned so that I could be sure.

We gathered, hugged, took pictures and video. Then we walked over to the local outdoor pub to share a beer and get to know who we were.

As I sat with five other with whom conversation came easily, I thought to myself, "This group is the opposite of the reflection in the BEAN."

People May Appear Closer Than They Are.

me liz strauss, letting me be

Precocious

I'm sure it was third grade. We were 8 years old. We were precocious. We weren't supposed to know yet that we were all different.

We had figured it out.

What did we do with that information? We didn't know. We were only 8 years old after all.

My friend, Patty, moved to another city. I asked my mom, "if we moved, could we move there?" She said, "Yes, but it's unlikely because I've put so much blood, sweat, and tears into where we live now."

I didn't know what she meant. I only wondered whether if in a new place I had a chance of starting over . . . I already knew the answer was "no." It was a "no" on both counts.

That's the problem with being precocious.

You know your destiny, only then you think it's what you were stuck with -- not who you are.

We were all precocious. They said we were the most rebellious class to ever go through the school.

Why wouldn't we be rebellious, if we knew already?

Precocious. Knowing before you understand what to do.

I'm a grown up, and I still know that precocious feeling now.

Lucky for me, it's familiar.

-- me liz strauss, letting me be

Please Don't Stop

When I write on paper, I write differently. I watch my thoughts as they leave my brain, moving down my arm to my hand and come out through the pencil's end. The words come more slowly and I look closely at them.

Something happens when I write on the Internet. Perhaps it's the fact that know other people are writing on other screens words that I'll read. It simply be that I'm looking up as if another person is sitting across from me. I am more aware that I'm talking with my keys -- that my words are a doorway to relationships.

Bit by bit, word by word, I've come to realize that the writing I do here is more than recording ideas and thoughts. People stop. People read. People answer what I say.

Their words meet my words. We communicate.

My heart and mind meets others here.

I hope that she tells them too.

"Please don't stop."

--me "liz" strauss, letting me be

She said, "Please don't stop."

I'm a writer. I'm not sure that I could.

Heart and Mind Online

We hadn’t seen each other for six years. It was a pleasure being in her company again. Such a feeling of being home when I was thousands of miles from my address. She cooked us a marvelous dinner with homemade coffee-flavored ice cream in my honor.

Then as my dear friend, her husband, left us to talk together. She caught me up on her life and her grandkids. She showed me their youngest daughter’s wedding album. We talked long about the jewelry she had made since the last time I saw her.

Then she said to me, “Do you have a journal?”

“Well, yes, actually. That would be my blog.”

I froze. I thought, Oh my god! Did I actually call my blog a journal?

For nearly two years, I’ve been saying to folks, “I’m going to write a book . . . to set the record straight.” The American title was going to be

If You Think my Blog Is a Journal, I Think Your Swimsuit Came from High School.

I had just called my blog a journal.

What’s happened to me?
I’m the one who, even at the age of 9, could not write in a diary. I didn’t want anyone ever to read what I thought. Not even after I was dead. I’m the one, who at 22, graded my personal poetry. I didn’t want someone to think I thought the bad ones were good.

Yet here I am now heart and mind standing naked online. I’m leaving words forever in a place that has no eraser. . . . and I’m even known for doing it.

I took out my iPhone and showed her around a few things I wrote. All she said was, “Don’t stop, please.”

I didn't.

--me liz strauss, letting me be

Had to Be Fairies

Finally after a winter of adjectives that all mean gray, I felt the warm air off the lake on my face. I was looking out the 12th story window -- the one that doesn't open. Still it was not my imagination. Call it memory, if you must. Either way, my face and the lake air had connected again.

I grabbed my spring jacket, laced my shoes, and left the building. It was a good seven minutes that I just stood in the sun. I was thinking of the old Ray Bradbury story, "All Summer in a Day." My thoughts were clear on the idea that, if this were the only one, I'd take a day like this to hold in my being for a long, long time.

No direction. I went walking. I suspect I was smiling. Every detail of the new spring was a new life to me. The old lady in the brown winter coat looked so uncomfortable. The man walking the golden retriever looked like he had just been let out of jail. Personally, I felt like a puppy.

Wandering aimlessly. How long since I've done that? How long since I've just let my feet choose the way?

They directed me to a tree-lined side street. I found myself standing before a red brick stately home with a Chinese garden beside it. I watched the water in the stream under the bridge, as I looked through the wrought iron fence.

When I turned to go, my eyes feel on a little patch by a tree near the street. Someone had tossed theblooms from impatiens that had fallen off the potten plant on the porch. Who knows what that person was thinking?

I only know I stood imagining the fairies who brought them there. Had to be fairies, they were too beautiful. I walked home, glad to know that fairies still hang around.

Later that night I discovered a message from a long lost friend.

Sure am glad those fairies are still around.

--me liz strauss, letting me be