Dear Readers, it is great to connect with you again!

May at least one word or sentence you are about to read be the words you most need or want right now.

I thought before the next character in The Creases now Speak introduces herself to you, I would start with a little inspiration from my favorite place and from the residents that live there that give me mine. Nature. (smile)

This past Friday I had the privilege of a special friend introducing me to a love of her life so that I would then be blessed to gain a second special friend, named Smokey Joe. A beautiful – or more appropriately I should say handsome – horse. Among all the meaningful moments shared with both of these wonderful souls, my friend talked about one of the many gifts we are given in a horse’s presence.   We learn how to be in the now. Calmly. Quietly. Simply. Instinctually.

As I stood next to this majestic soul, intending the congruence in my heart was earning Smokey Joe’s trust, my friend shared that the Heartmath Institute has declared horses can sense human hearts up to four feet away. I knew from the institute it is up to fifteen feet away for humans to humans. I found myself tingling with a magical sensation as I stood letting my hand be the grooming brush strokes on Smokey Joe’s neck to think that he was sensing what was in my heart as I stood within this four-feet parameter next to him.

When Smokey Joe’s muzzle and my cheek met and stayed connected for a few seconds, I relished the powerful communication that can take place without words. Two souls, vastly different from each other, giving each other one of the most sacred gifts we can give. Trusting each other with our hearts. All the way to the literal congruence of each other’s heartbeats.

A few weeks ago, I had another opportunity to hurry outside to see if I could assist a winged friend. I wonder what the Heartmath Institute has researched regarding the space for birds to sense our hearts. My new little friend might say inches. (smile) 

I am reminded of a movie I watched recently. Unfortunately, since it was one that I drifted in and out of as I tried to fall back to sleep in the middle of the night, I didn’t catch the title of it, but I did follow the overall message the movie was conveying.   Those details less important than the last lines of the movie.   Did I really have an angel helping me? I believe I did. I heard the whisper of wings.

Or the step of hooves

Or the swoosh of a tail wag

Mother Nature’s angels everywhere to help us be in the now congruently with our hearts.

May an angel cross your path over these next couple of weeks until the next Blueprints for a Hope-Filled Life enters your inbox.

And now for the next person to introduce herself to you as the Creases Now Speak.

-Christine

The Creases Now Speak

Kaylen

Ever since he looked up the meaning of her name, Joshua has crooned to Kaylen how she is the keeper of the keys to his heart. Kaylen remembers Joshua’s response when she told him how her grandma would scoop her into a bear hug and sing a ditty referencing the additional meaning of Kaylen’s name – pure. My pure sugar sweet, there will be nothing you can’t achieve.  Perfect, my child, perfect you be. I love you so, my pure sugar sweet.

Joshua scooped Kaylen into his arms and whispered perfect, my wife, perfect you are to me. I love you so, my purely amazing wife who can achieve anything.

If only her grandma and Joshua were right. Kaylen was learning there are some things she can’t achieve.

Kaylen was born the only girl in the middle of five brothers to Kayla, a successful university president and Leonard, a successful pediatrician. Her oldest brother, Quintin, followed in their mom’s footsteps, education his path of success to his superintendent role overseeing a 115,000-student school district in San Fransisco. Her second oldest brother, Anthony, is a successful orthopedic surgeon in Boston, a career path he pursued after a knee injury almost prevented him from playing every sport possible, for this is his second love. Sports. You name it. Basketball, soccer, baseball, the new craze – pickleball.

Kaylen’s younger brother, Liam, is a successful general practitioner; he is part of a mission team who travels to poverty and health-stricken regions of the world. And Kaylen’s baby brother, Josiah – she really needs to stop referring to him as “baby” as he reminds her often – is finishing his master’s in psychology and counseling. He has been interning at a clinic in Minneapolis and has a full-time job waiting for him at the same place once he graduates. Josiah can’t decide between the four job offers he currently has.  He, too, is well on his way to success.

Kaylen is a physician, too. Women’s gynecological and reproductive health is her primary focus. Successful? She’s not always so sure.  So many of her patients long to become a mom, and currently can’t. Her compassion can only do so much when a woman is sobbing uncontrollably at another single line on a pregnancy test kit.

Kaylen learned at an early age that the word “successful” needed to be used when describing her parents and brothers. Kaylen has learned to look past the surprised looks she receives when she shares what they do professionally, those same looks that people believe they are keeping hidden in the words they are not speaking. Everyone is doing so well professionally, and you are Black!

Kaylen knows racism is prevalent. But she has never been one to focus on “isms.”  She follows the adage “see a soul” and noticing how someone looks is about seeing the vibrant hues of their clothing or the magnificent shine in their eyes. Which is what attracted her to Joshua the second she walked into her friend Lynette’s home for the birthday party Lynette was throwing for her husband Zach. Joshua’s emerald, green eyes that left her feeling she had just stepped into the tranquil waters of an oasis.

She isn’t sure how long it took her to notice Joshua’s skin was white.  Perhaps it was not until they were making love, when he kept looking at her naked body as if she were a precious jewel he would treasure with delicacy and reverence the rest of his life.   As if her body was pure. Flawless.

She can still see the way Joshua looked at her in her wedding dress as she walked beside her dad down the aisle. Those emerald, green eyes communicating “forever” before he vowed always. Kaylen and Joshua had an intimate wedding, a gathering of close family and friends. Or friends in Joshua’s case. His mom passed away when Joshua was sixteen, and he never knew his father. Joshua didn’t invite his grandparents.  I do not want rejection present at the best day of my life marrying the half that completes me” Joshua told her.

More important to Kaylen was honoring what Joshua was feeling so she did not try to convince him she was strong enough to handle rejection.   After all, she had been managing stereotypes designed to reject her all her life.

A few months after they were married Joshua introduced Kaylen to his grandma at a coffee shop around the corner from Kaylen’s practice. She liked Patricia, Joshua’s grandma. Patricia had been a stay-at-home mom; Kaylen admired – or maybe envied – this about Patricia. Kaylen looked forward to getting to know her better, until life arrived with other plans when Patricia suffered a stroke and passed away a few days later. That was four years ago.

Joshua’s grandpa Edward is in assisted living now, recently diagnosed with cancer. She sometimes wonders if Joshua will feel the time is right to tell his grandpa about her. Kaylen isn’t afraid of Edward’s rejection of her.  She is more afraid of her body’s rejection of one of her dreams.

And how Joshua might feel when he learns she is not successful after all. That she has found something she may not be able to achieve. Maybe it is time she accepts an “ism” in her life. The realism that she may not become a mother.