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Making Space for Other People

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I've been thinking . . .

about hospitality.

My Italian grandmother, Liza, was born in an Italian village near Modena. It is called Ospitale. The name means It accommodates them — hospitality. Perhaps her origins had something to do with how a saloon came to be her work and . . . later that of her two sons.

Hospitality . . . my grandmother knew what it meant. Though she never had but a few words of English when I visited her as a child, even in my youngest years, we always communicated with out frustration. Most of what she said was with her smile, her eyes, the tone of her voice, and her facial expressions. The memory of us spending time making surprised faces at each other still delights me and is the first that comes to mind when I think of sitting at her dining room table.

Her dining room table. We sat at her dining room table. Folks in the Illinois village of Italian immigrants, where she lived in my lifetime, enjoyed it at her tavern there. She welcomed everyone there as she welcomed folks into her home, by making room for them. I could see it in her smile, her eyes, the tone or her voice, and facial expressions. I bet she learned those in Ospitale.

Hospitality is a warm and cordial welcome to my friends and their friends and strangers who will soon be friends. It’s making room. It’s finding a place at the table, on the couch, and in the conversation for their presence and their ideas. It’s offering them what they need to feel at home and to let self-consciousness fall away from them.

Today and through the weekend I’ll have guests.

My goal is to extend the warmest hospitality.

I want to welcome, entertain, protect, and serve each person with generosity. Blog reading is so tied to conversation. Hospitality and blogging belong together.

And for my guests at home . . . I’ll offer generous hospitality there too.

Liz's Signature

Bloggy Question 53: What Kind of Home Is One Blog You Read?

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Blog, Sweet, Blog

Choose a blog you read. Imagine it as a home. What kind of home would it be?

picture collage of homes

I’ll go first.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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How to Be Alive and 10 Ways to Celebrate Living!

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Give It a Try

silhouette of girl splashing water at sunset

Oh yeah, science has defined and described life — no disputing that. It’s that time that occurs between birth and death that we fill up with breathing, eating, sometimes sleeping, preserving the species, and whatever thoughtful and mindless else we might devise.

To get beyond the state of being to having meaning is an art and a craft. The trick is finding the space between the literal and the figurative.

If you want to give it a try . . .

How to Be Alive

In some ways, being alive is a mystical balancing act. It takes thinking and feeling about ideas, things, and people. Actually being alive is deliberate and spontaneous. It’s getting all systems go while being totally still. It can be done. I’ve actually met people who are alive!

Here’s a way to give it a go.

  • Check your life signs. Even though working lungs and a beating heart are clear necessities of living, most of us hold our breath and lose our hearts when we’re overwhelmed. We crawl up into our heads and forget who we are.
  • Know that you can’t get a life — you’ve already got one. If you don’t have one, you’re not reading this.
  • Bring things to life. Be there and show up with all that you are. We get back what we invest.
  • Hold onto your wonderful memories, but let go of the rest. Keeping too much makes us less, holding onto less makes us more.
  • Work hard to reach for your potential, but be easy on yourself. We all need love — our own most of all.
  • Be true to life. Listen to what you knew when you were born. We start out wise, authentic, and letting the world know we’re here. That’s the part we call spirit. We know. We did then. We always will. It’s who we are.
  • Be who you want to become.

One reward of putting all you are into living is how other people find a living soul fascinating and attractive. We’re drawn to a person so vibrantly centered. Our life expands with each person who responds that attraction.

10 Ways to Celebrate Living

When we walk back into our own life again, it’s a wonder — we wonder at what took us so long, wonder at things we hadn’t been seeing, doing, being, sharing with folks we care about. The realization can be quite stunning and profound.

It’s breathtaking to be living.

Definitely worth celebrating. Here are 10 Ways to celebrate living.

  1. Whenever you stretch your mind, stretch your body too. The difference is exponential and incredibly cool.
  2. Do something that’s not electronic. Better yet make it something you’ve never done that you do with someone who sees you as you are.
  3. Go somewhere you can’t see anything made by people. Then before you look, close your eyes to listen for the longest while.
  4. Eat something delicious. Go for that “last cookie” feeling with every bite.
  5. Run your hand along a fence or a wall. Sit on a floor. Walk the curb like a tightrope walker would. You know how. I bet you’ve done them all before.
  6. Listen to music filled with images of your history. Seek out and savor the smells and tastes of comfort times in the past. Send a thought to the people who experienced them with you wherever they are. They’re not gone, if you remember.
  7. Test drive your body like a two year old who just got brand-new shoes.
  8. Run in the grass and fall down on purpose. I bet you did that once too.
  9. Touch wet paint to see how wet it is. Wipe your hand on your pants without a thought. Then send a wish to a guy who did that same thing once, while his mom was watching. Know that his mom didn’t get mad.
  10. Say “I love you” and mean it to someone who least expects it. Then do it again and again. Every time that you do, tell yourself the same thing.

I’m guessing you have the hang of it by now. Being alive really comes down to one sentence.

Live your experiences and experience your life.

We have a whole life of time to do nothing but that. It makes sense, simple and elegant. It’s not hard to be alive . . . once we remember how.

Liz's Signature

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Every Blogger Knows . . . Thank You Is Living on the Web

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It’s the Living!

relationships button

Every blogger knows we have to repeat what we say, because sometimes folks are absent. . . . or they’re busy thinking their own thoughts . . . or we didn’t say it quite as well as we might. So when a friend says something brilliant we keep it close and use it again and again.

It starts with the words of Tony D. Clark. Thank you, friend.

The whole thing changes when the world becomes your community.

Every blogger knows having a friend who will help out is why the Internet is thriving.

Two weeks ago, I asked a favor of Mitch Matthews. Would you guest host Open Comments Night? He made it sound like I was giving him a gift. Thank you, Mitch, for jumping in with all of the energy, fun, and wonderful things you are.

Every blogger knows, when someone comes to town, it’s important to say “hello,” even if you’ve never met. As it turned out a hello became the start of a conversation with Jeff Pulver and his cousin. Eric, and ended in Jeff’s Summer Party at the House of Blues. Thank you, Jeff, for your charming curiosity, your incredible generosity, and the amazing people you gathered in one room.

Every blogger knows some folks are connected before they meet. How do you do to Chris Brogan, who greeted me with kind words from a friend, Becky McCray. Thank you, Becky. I feel like you introduced us. Thank you, Chris, for unexpectedly showing up, and showing up more than I would have expected.

Every blogger knows that coming home is the best! Thank you everyone who was here at Open Comments Last Night to make Mitch feel welcome as a guest.

Thank you, Wendy and Ari, for being part of the event last night. Fun isn’t as much fun without people who are close.

Yeah it’s right. Sometimes we have to repeat what we say, because folks are absent. . . . or they’re busy thinking their own thoughts . . . or we didn’t say it quite as well as we might. So I’ll say it again.

I’m one lucky blogger so many times over. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Liz's Signature

Bookcraft 2.0: 7 Reasons eBooks Are Losing Readers

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eCards, eBooks, NOT eNough eTime!

Do you read eCards?
Most of us don’t. We have our exceptions. We read them — IF they come from our children or a dear friend. We read those because we love the people who sent them, and we know they spent time to choose the right one.

We also read eCards WHEN we know someone is going to TEST US. . . . Did you like the dancing bear I sent you? . . . We read them THEN, but we don’t like it. No, uh-uh, not one bit.

Do you download eBooks?
Most of us do. We download them; print them; and read them — or we set them aside and forget them. eBooks used to seem a bargain. After the third, fifth, seventh download, we’re finding they’ve got their drawbacks. The investment seems to grow with each one.

Some of us read them on our computers. But most eBooks are darn long for that.

Are you less interested in eBooks now than you were a year ago?
Another isn’t as appealing to me. Even the free eBook doesn’t do anything — because free is far from free.

7 Reasons eBooks Peaked in Their Life Cycle

Are you less interested in eBooks now than you were a year ago? Do you think it could be because an eBook isn’t really made to serve you the way quality products are?

In the world of publishing, an eBook at its core is unfinished. It’s basically what would be sent to a printer. The eBook format makes sense for the most time-sensitive, changing information, such as Aaron Wall’s SEO Book — accurate, well-designed content, which includes free lifetime updates (no longer available in ebook form).

The speed at which I can get an eBook no longer means much when I consider what I invest to take it off my computer. I am the printer, binder, shipper, warehouse. When I download and print an eBook

  1. I pay for the paper, the ink, and the wear on my printer.

  2. It’s my time. It’s my computer. It’s my schedule that makes room for the download.

  3. I get inconsistency and often more work than I bargained for. Would that every eBook was held to Aaron Wall’s standard of content, editing, design, and production. His book looks, reads, and prints like a dream. No I don’t know him. I appreciate quality.

  4. They are not books. Books rarely fall apart when we turn the page.

  5. An eBook takes up far more space than a bound book.

  6. No matter how compelling the content, an eBook is an unlikely gift.

  7. No eBook could hold a place of honor on an elegant bookshelf or coffee table.

As a delivery system, an eBook is unconstructed, low design packaging that benefits the author/publisher, more than the customer/reader. It’s not Web 2.0. It’s less choice than fast-food, usually with less quality control.

With what time I have to read, I read things I want to keep. An eBook is a pile of paper from my printer. It is not made to deliver reading ease or pleasure.

A traditional book is less expensive. It’s designed to be read, easy to navigate, and it fits elegantly on my shelf. If you can only do it one way, a real book serves more readers in presenting information in a printed paper format.

Time, money, paper, ink, space, aggravation . . . what have you spent on eBooks?

Yeah, I could leave an eBook on my computer and read it there. There’s a list to go with that too. It starts with using resources and keeping me on my computer even longer than I am now.

To put it plainly, I’ll pump my own gas, because it’s faster. I’ll print my own boarding pass, because I don’t have to stand in line and wait. They both save me time and don’t tie me up or tie me to my computer.

Most eBooks deliver too little and cost too much for me. For a product to win on speed and low-cost design/production value, we have to get something real in return that we want.

I’m not. Are you?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like Liz to help you make a plan to meet your goals, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

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I Can’t Wait Until . . . Now!

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Can we talk about . . .

how we think about our lives?

I watch people. I watch myself. I hear what we say. We say, “I can’t wait until . . .

until I grow up.

until I move away.

until I get a job.

until we get married.

the baby is born.

until he walks.

until she talks.

until he can . . .

until she can . . .

until I can . . .

until we can . . .

until morning, until 5 o’clock, until my birthday, until you come home, until we leave, until, until, until . . .

In a few thousand thoughts, we can wish our lives away.

Liz's Signature