Hello all, 

Four more long sleeps and we step across the threshold into March.    

I’m curious if Mother Nature will wake up and encourage the lambs to graze their way across the pastures during March 1.   Or if Mother Nature will believe the lions have a voice to be heard, encouraging their strength, resilience, and courage to roar through the winds in the treetops. 

The thing so magical is that if we listen, deeply listen, we will see, hear, and feel the gentleness and the boldness simultaneously.    We will witness the most delicate, fragile elements of Mother Nature resting on the footpaths cut into the frozen tundra by hooves moving to stay warm, moving to be stronger than the winter that has long buried green grasses and is hibernating new buds for several more weeks.   

I marvel that the leaf held on to the tree limb long after other trees decided it time to let go of what had been.   And then I find the leaf courageous in choosing before the fullness of sunshine, rain, and warming temperatures, that it was time to let go and prepare to make room for the new.     

I pause and notice the harmony.    The gentle leaf and the frozen tundra fitting together beautifully.    

Happy March!  May you feel Spring within reach!

Namaste’

The Creases Now Speak

Mary

In Mary’s nausea-induced stupor, she thought she was dreaming about her mom.

“Mary needs your support” the female voice exclaimed.

“I don’t know what else to do” was the king’s reply.

Mary was a junior in high school applying to the business management program at the University. She had the grade point and the financial means. What Mary didn’t have, though, was experience in a business environment, or at least someone influential who could write a recommendation letter, along with a donation to the school.    

The admissions advisor had taken to Mary. Instead of rejecting her application, the advisor told Mary that if she could get a summer office job, she would be accepted into the program.

Mary had been trying to find employment for several weeks. She was discouraged, frustrated, and eager to lash out at her mom when her mom asked if she could do anything to help, even if it was simply to make Mary’s favorite comfort food meal. “A stupid meal isn’t going to help me get into the program, mom!  You don’t understand!”    As Mary started to head to her bedroom, she turned to her mom. Turning her tears into ice daggers, Mary coldly said to her mom “I may not get into the program of my dreams, but I WILL NEVER be a maid like you!   I WILL do something worthwhile with my life!” 

A few hours later, after another family dinner at which her mom had fussed and tsked, Mary started down the stairs to grab a book she’d forgotten.  That is when she heard her mom say, “Mary needs your support.”     

Mary’s mom was asking her dad to help Mary get a job. As Mary listened to their conversation, she heard her dad say “it’s a tough world in business.  You must have thick skin.”     

“You don’t think your daughter has any?  I would hate to see her in a meeting with your boss!”  Said Mary’s mom.

Mary’s dad chuckled and then his tone became serious again. “The business world will shorten Mary’s quality of life.”

“She wants this, James. Not realizing her dreams will shorten her quality of life even more.”

Mary wondered if her mom wasn’t only talking about Mary’s dreams.   

“You need to help your daughter make this happen James. Set aside your personal feelings and get our daughter a summer job.”

Two weeks later Mary was preparing for her first day as a data entry intern at a small firm.

Four months after her mom told her dad what we would do, Mary received her acceptance letter into the business program.

Twenty-eight years later Mary would repeatedly hear “your mom was so proud of you” as they filed in line past her and Henry, to Patricia and Edward, and then to her dad who stood in one of his distinguishing suits looking more broken than the kings who just signed over their kingdoms.

Mary felt the words about her mom being proud were spoken with as much sincerity as the parrot- repeating words “sorry for your loss.”       “You didn’t give her a brain aneurism so why are you apologizing?” was what Mary really wanted to say. Instead, Mary smiled, expressed appreciation for their kind words, and vowed to herself never to say “I’m sorry for your loss” to anyone else again.

Fast forward, As Mary lay on her side in a fetal position under the comforter, willing her body to overcome the need to grab the small pail now a permanent fixture in their master bedroom, she realized she wasn’t dreaming.   It wasn’t her mom saying Mary needed someone.   She also knew it wasn’t her dad.

Her dad never cried    At least never in front of her and Patricia     Not even when their mom died    Not even when they each tossed a clump of dirt onto her casket     Not even when they helped their dad stand after everyone else left the graveside, slowly walking him to the car holding elbows of a now hollow man who never did fill back up with life after that.   

The male voice she now heard saying “I don’t know what else to do” was crying. Her Henry. Patricia was telling him Mary needed his support    She couldn’t hear everything, only snippets.  “Not. Her mad. Never. Tears. Not even. More than I have. Afraid. Dying.”

When Mary heard footsteps outside the door, she longed to roll over and put her back to the doorway, but moving her body meant the person on the other side of the door would get to hear Mary’s wrenching as she vomited. Laying still kept the nausea at bay.     

Mary felt the shadow standing at the doorway. She could sense the shadow step closer, and knew it wasn’t Patricia by the way it didn’t start fussing to empty the pail or refill the water bottle.    

Henry had moved into the guest bedroom when Mary began responding to the chemo. Vomiting, headaches, sensitivity to light, fatigue, hair loss, nail loss, constipation when she wasn’t experiencing diarrhea, numbness in her hands and feet, mouth ulcers, and Mary’s favorite – brain fog.   It was enough that the rest of her body was experiencing a hostile takeover. The one thing she could always count on was her sharp and quick mind; now she couldn’t even count on remembering yesterday.

She waited for Henry to speak. Just when she thought he had left the room, she felt the bed move behind her. Suddenly she felt an arm reach over her hip and felt his body very gently move towards her back    She could barely hear him as he asked if he was hurting her if she was ok.

“Hold me” Mary managed to speak. “Tighter.”

When she felt Henry spooning her body, she asked him not to let go. Henry squeezed her close, promising her he never would.

As Mary drifted off to sleep, she dreamt of her mom. Her mom was reaching out and pulling Mary into her lap.

Dear Readers,

I am grateful once again for this shared time with you.

At the point you are reading this, I offer you this sunshine wink and wishes that the remaining days of February provide you with a downstream flow as life brings much your way.  For life tends to bring much in its currents, and sometimes it can seem like there are rapids or a pending waterfall that we want to avoid capsizing in or careening off into the gushing water basin at the end of the fall.

I remember one time preparing to go river rafting in West Virginia and a colleague who was an experienced rafter telling me about eddies, and how there are these undertow swirls that one can fall into, and the key is not to panic. Let the undertow pull you under and ride it out and eventually it will pop you out into calm waters. I remember being sooooooooo grateful an eddy and I didn’t meet!  I didn’t have confidence that I could trust the river flow more than my belief I would need to control the waters swirling around me.   I didn’t trust the innateness within me to know how to kick my feet in partnership with the direction the water was guiding me through. 

Innateness we all have to navigate the currents without kicking too hard or paddling upstream.   

I like what nature is whispering.   Flow downstream. The sun is beckoning, follow me.

Namaste’

The Creases Now Speak

Patricia

A couple of weeks before Patricia had had her stroke, she felt compelled to go to her old hope chest, the one she hadn’t opened in twenty-three years.   Not since she had tucked away William’s letter to her.

The letter she had found under her windshield wiper in the grocery store parking lot.

The one that contained the last words she heard William say.

The one she first tucked away in the top drawer of her dresser, pulling it out periodically to catch a whiff of William’s aftershave, like she always smelled when they ran into each other at the grocery store.

The letter that she initially thought was placed on her path to teach her regret.

Patricia’s wisdom revealed the finality it held was preparing her for learning how to let go.

For if she hadn’t learned the grace of letting go, she would not have discovered what she did on this day she opened the lid on what once held her youthful hopes and dreams.

It was a cedar chest she received on her sixteenth birthday. A tradition passed down by maternal generations for holding treasured fine linens such as handmade doilies, christening dresses for babies, knitted blankets or a handmade quilt. Perhaps even a silk negligée for one’s wedding night. The things young women hoped to use when they had a family and a home of their own one day.

Patrica used her hope chest to store her diaries. She began writing in a diary when she was thirteen. She continued writing in one until the day of her stroke. The content she wrote morphed over the years. What initially began as a sounding board and friend, evolved into a collection of significant moments, and then became letters to Edward, Stephanie, and Laura that she believed they would value receiving one day. Or at least as Patricia intended when she began writing letters right after Stephanie was born.

From the moment Patricia held the first life she had birthed into this world, Patricia became aware of her own mortality.   One day she would die, and Stephanie and Laura and their families would continue without her. She may also be the reason Edward realizes the last portion of their vows that cannot be known until. Death parts.

As Patrica held her still naked and bloodied daughter to her chest, the umbilical cord cut only moments before, Patricia knew she only had a finite amount of time to live. That night she wrote in her diary she had packed when preparing her hospital suitcase for labor day. Dear Diary, today I held my life in my arms. I am now a mother. My dear child, from this day forward, I will write the words you will one day long to know.

The diaries Patricia had written in between twenty-three years ago and now she had been storing in a cabinet in their walk-in closet.   Patricia felt it was time she put all her diaries together in one location. She planned to gather the diaries from her hope chest and add them to the cabinet.

Greeting her when she opened the lid was William’s letter. We both know I desired coffee to turn into more. That you said “no” restores my faith in women and marriage. I hope Edward knows how lucky he is. William.

For a split-second Patricia debated leaving the letter. Maybe it would be good for Edward to find a letter she had kept tucked away, too.  But then Patricia thought about what words she would want Edward to find, and they didn’t include a time another man desired her. 

Patrica reached into the chest to pull out the oldest diaries. She skimmed her early teenage ones. Joshua and Kaylen might find them amusing. She wasn’t sure if Laura would care to see any of her diaries.  She hadn’t talked to her youngest daughter since Stephanie was dying.  Edward wouldn’t care about them, either.  Into the “toss” pile they went.

She opened the diary that included when her and Johnny broke up. Her memory was of breaking up because he would not go to church with her and how he had treated her like she was a princess. Nostalgia held her longing for what she had walked away from.

Patricia read a notation from Friday, July 26, 1963. Today I told Johnny I was breaking up with him. I am not sure which hurts more. Breaking up. Or that he didn’t fight for me.   

Patricia had blocked out Johnny not trying to talk her into a different decision. She recalled the weeks after, anticipating Johnny would contact her and how he would tell her he would go to church once a month because he didn’t want to lose her; he wanted to build that house for her.  She could accept once a month and negotiate holidays like Easter and Christmas.

Patricia recalled Mary telling her during one of her cry herself to sleep nights after their breakup that Johnny had only told her he’d build her a house so that Patricia would have sex with him in that meadow.   Patricia didn’t want to believe it was true at the time.  Not until she heard a few months later Johnny was getting married. He’d gotten a girl pregnant.    

Patricia opened another diary. This one held a letter in an unopened envelope. Her name was written on the front. It was inserted in the page dated three days before Edward and her wedding day.

As Patricia opened the envelope, a photograph fell out. It was her and Edward. He was looking at her like she was the most beautiful sight.

My dear Patricia,

I promise I did not read your diary. There are things I want to say to you before our wedding day. Since I am better at writing than speaking, I thought I would leave this in your diary for you to find.

I once…

As Patricia continued reading, her eyes filled with tears.

Hello everyone,

I have a dear friend who reminded me a few weeks ago that presence is not only in appreciating the beauty and awe available to us, believing we are paying homage when we snap a picture. Presence is in beholding the beauty and awe without taking photographs, letting what we are experiencing in the moment seep into our senses, our body, our hearts.

So, when over this past week, I’ve had three different encounters with a flock of mourning doves holding a line of peace and love for me in their perched positions, I’ve opted not to try to capture a photo and instead trust that the awe at their appearance at “just that right time” has etched itself into my memory box for me to draw upon when I need a reminder that life is miraculous, magical, and full of grace. 

As we all enter the doorway to the last month of this year, the last month before we cross the threshold into the year that will mark a quarter century lived, I wish you abundant peacefulness and love that doves hold in their being-ness.

I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world – Sadako Sasaki

Namaste’

-Christine

The Creases Now Speak

Bian

It was several days after Mỹ spoke her words to Bian in the middle of the night.

Nine to be exact.

It was one of the longest stretches for Bian, not painting at the end of her day. As she stood in her master bedroom, looking out at Lake Michigan, debating entering her art studio, she kept hearing her mother’s words “my secret child. You gave me life he tried to take.”

Bian laughed to herself at the irony she was in such a debate to paint or not to paint on day nine. Painting always felt like a completion to her day. If she was lucky enough to time it, she could enter her studio as the sun was setting.   As she would watch the sun lay its head down on the pillow tops of the waves, she would reflect on what the day had offered for growth while she also let the waves roll peacefully towards her in a promise of continuation. That tomorrow morning the sun would lift its head up and declare with such authoritative strength, “today is a new day.”

All the symbolism of lucky number nine. Completion. Continuous cycles of growth. Strength. Authority. Yet, nine wasn’t compelling her to cross the threshold into her studio. 

Since the night her mother cried, Bian felt anything but complete. Nor has she felt strong. No longer feeling expert with her life.

She thought about contacting her younger brothers. Maybe Mỹ cried out something similar to them.

Bian looked over at the dresser whose blend of creamy white, pinkish brown, dark reddish brown American hard maple provides the beautiful resting place for the acacia wood frame her father made that holds the picture of Bian’s grandmother Linh, her mom, and her great aunt Cà. This picture has followed Binh everywhere.

Her new bedroom her father remodeled for her so that her room could become the nursery for each of her baby brothers. Her dorm room at the University of California – Berkeley when Bian moved from Vietnam to the U.S. The picture sat on the one tiny end table she had in her studio apartment when she was an intern at Mullen Advertising in Boston.

When she moved in with Andrew in his condo in Chicago, she still remembers how he took her hand and led her to the bookcase where he had cleared a shelf specifically for this picture.  Bian had never elaborated to him why this picture meant so much. Andrew observed it sitting on her end table and knew it was sacred to her. Andrew was intuitive like that when it came to Bian. She often thought Andrew knew her heart better than she did.

Or at least he always knew how to help her sort through her mind’s confusion to get to the center of her soul’s knowing.

She knew if she asked Andrew what he thought her mom meant, he would have the wisdom she most needed. He would also have his way of wrapping her in his arms so that she would feel all was well, no matter the uncertainty.

Yet, something in her wasn’t ready to voice out loud that this might become her hardest lesson yet experiencing that nothing is meant to be held onto.  

Not even her childhood as she knew it.

Bian looked at the sun setting on the horizon, remembering as a little girl peeking into her old room turned into her brother’s nursery. Her mother was holding baby Nhất, and her father was looking at her mother and the baby as if they were both so fragile they might break. Her mother was softly encouraging her father to hold out his arms, palms facing up, and as he did, she gently placed Bian’s baby brother into her father’s arms. Bian remembers hearing her mother say Đầu tiên của bạn. “Your first.”  

Bian then saw her mother place her right palm on Bian’s father’s right cheek and with Mỹ’s other hand, she wiped tears from her father’s left cheek. Her father wept while he raised baby Nhất’s bundled body into his chest and began humming such comforting sounds Bian started to feel sleepy standing outside the doorway.

Bian always thought because Nhất’s name means “one” or “first” and because Nhất was the first boy in their family, her mom was referring to these things when she whispered those words to Bian’s father.

Something is nudging her gut, though. Something she can’t explain. 

Or doesn’t want to. 

Which may be why she is resisting talking to Andrew.

If she voices out loud what she is questioning, Andrew may offer to help her research if what she is thinking has any merit.   She would want him to tell her “don’t be silly”, but because he knows her heart, he will gently take her hand and tell her “it will be ok and I am beside you” because he will know that what Bian is really wanting is to finally understand why Mỹ named her a secret.  

More than the grip on her gut because of Mỹ’s recent words is the tightening on her heart that Bian has felt most of her teenage and adult life. There is a secret surrounding her conception, a feeling that Mỹ had to choose between a life she could have had and the life she did have. Bian never questioned her mom’s love; Bian knew she was wanted. No, that wasn’t the grip on her heart.  

The grip was that Mỹ had sacrificed for Bian, just as Grandmother Linh had sacrificed for Mỹ, and Aunt Cà had sacrificed for her family. But what had that sacrifice cost each of them? Was Bian living her life in such a way she was making it matter what they had given up?

Was Bian living her life making it matter that her cousin Binh could no longer live his?

Bian stared at the picture that has followed her everywhere as her barometer. Am I choosing well?

Dear readers, 

Thankful, grateful, blessed. For each of you! I am thankful, grateful, blessed. You continue to join me bi-weekly, and some of you have spoiled me even more by sharing what you read, thereby inviting others to be connected together, all of us designing blueprints for a hope-filled life.    

Thank YOU for being YOU!

You won’t be surprised at what you read next when I express that I love Nature!  (Smile, grin). Not only being outside immersed in it. Not only for the take your breath away beauty it holds. I love how Nature is always speaking messages. Miracle communications for the design of our best blueprints!

Like the blue line of sky visible just above the trees, slicing through the clouds on the morning of November 6^th. “Silver lining” Mother Nature whispered. Through the grayness of the morning start among the trees now bare of their Autumn multicolored jackets, the clouds and blue sky partnered together to communicate hope, faith, love. And the greatest of all three

Is our choice in how we choose to hear and see.

A few weeks ago, I was blessed to travel to Sicily, visiting many historical sites originating hundreds of years ago in their destiny to be what we look back on to learn from. As I stood listening about volcanoes, earthquakes, and empires at war that destroyed foundational structures, I watched the passersby in vehicles and on sidewalks demonstrating the continuation of life. A bus ride and a sky tram ride up a volcanic mountain allowed me to observe how Nature was flourishing through the abundant green grasses and trees at the base of this once spewing forth hot lava mountainside.

A silver lining in the clouds doesn’t shine through without the gray overcast sky. 

The need for blueprint designs does not occur without someone wishing to alter what is or build something new.

This thought just struck me as I talk with all of you.  My dad was a builder. He designed structures and gathered the materials to build what he designed. He not only built from scratch at places once empty space. He remodeled. He took what was no longer working and improved it while ensuring the important foundational parts of the structure were not demolished.

I used to focus on the clouds and bare trees. Translation, how I wasn’t talented in carpentry like him.

Now, as I see and see again, I see the blue streak parting the clouds.

I may not be gifted with a hammer and nails or relish climbing ladders carrying 2×4’s, but Dad taught me how to view what is for the possibilities to make better and how to create what isn’t yet there but is wished for or needed.  Dad didn’t come up to a building site and see the hard work that it would take to create what he envisioned in the blueprints. 

He didn’t see the bare trees and clouds.

He saw the blue streaks of silver and then he got to work.

Now I think it’s time for me to go find his tool belt.

Namaste’

-Christine

THE CREASES NOW SPEAK

JOSHUA

Joshua, or “J” as his Aunt Laura likes to call him, was twelve when his aunt moved to London. Four years before he began living with his Grandpa Edward and Grandma Patricia. Four years before he became an orphan.

Or at least that was the truth in Joshua’s mind, for he never knew his biological father. For all Joshua knew, his father could be dead. Or be his next-door neighbor. Joshua didn’t know what his father looked like.   His mother never shared a picture. But he always felt that he would know as soon as he looked into a stranger’s eyes and saw a mirror reflection of himself looking back.

His grandma used to tell him that he looked like his mother. Joshua always felt it was either because she was trying to help ease the aloneness Joshua felt after his mother died or she was trying to ease her own profound grief choosing to see that her oldest daughter was still alive thru him.

Kaylen didn’t think Joshua looked like his mom.   He remembers showing her a picture of his mom, his Aunt Laura, and himself – a picture taken when his aunt was getting ready to leave for London. Kaylen commented on two things. The anger she saw in Aunt Laura’s eyes. And how he and his mom had the same smile but that was the only feature Kaylen saw as resemblance. Joshua remembers the feeling that stirred in him when Kaylen said that. His mom had always told him that he smiled like his father. If he didn’t have his dad’s smile, what of his dad was him?    

When Joshua’s mom died, he vowed he would be like his Aunt Laura. Single. No children. Working and living abroad. He would come back to Chicago more frequently than his Aunt Laura did. Joshua has only seen her twice since she moved away eighteen years ago. Once when his mom was passing away, nine years ago. The second time when Laura came to say goodbye to his grandma before she died. Joshua used to think his aunt’s lack of visits was because she was living glamorously sought by many or was a starving journalist who couldn’t afford frequent airfare.   

Until Kaylen responded to his question asking what she meant when she commented on his aunt’s fiery eyes. “She is filled with anger. She has been judged as an outcast. She is determined to prove she is not less than.”   When Joshua lightheartedly chuckled and joked with Kaylen if that was the intuitive doctor coming through in how she reads her patients, Kaylen gently rubbed her index finger across the photo, pausing on the image of Aunt Laura. “No,” Kaylen said as she shook her head. “She has the eyes of someone discriminated against.”    It was moments like that when Joshua wanted nothing more than to shelter Kaylen from having anyone else ever judge her again.

His aunt didn’t know about Kaylen.   He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t told her yet. He had always felt nothing but unconditional love from Aunt Laura. She always writes “my favorite nephew” in every email response back to him, just as she had always said that to him the first twelve years of his life when she lived in Chicago.

Joshua updated his aunt via email every week on how his grandpa – her father – was doing. More than once, he thought of asking her if grandpa was the reason for the fire in her eyes. If he is the reason she doesn’t visit more frequently.  If maybe she is actually married.    Perhaps to someone of color.   He feels a kindred connection to her that is more than an aunt – nephew bond. That she would understand his love for Kaylen and why he can’t bring himself to tell his grandpa about her.   

More than once Joshua also thought of asking his aunt to help him find his father. Certainly, her journalism skills could find some clues. But every time he thought of asking her, Joshua would repeat the narrative he had been telling himself since he was a little boy. His father didn’t want a child.  

If he had wanted to be a father, he would have made sure he was involved in Joshua’s upbringing.    He would have been there to teach Joshua how to skip rocks, to sit in the bleachers cheering on Joshua at every home and away basketball game, to believe in and encourage him to attend college. To assure him he was not going to be alone when his mother died.

Which is why Joshua didn’t want children.   Given that his genes were also those of his father’s, he didn’t want to run the risk he’d abandon his child.   Joshua already feared he wasn’t going to grow old with Kaylen.    Cancer was destined to be his future too, Joshua was convinced. He didn’t want to risk leaving Kaylen a single mom, like his own had been.    

Joshua and Kaylen had talked about starting a family. Before they got married, they talked in terms of “one day” but their lifestyle scurrying between careers and friendships didn’t lend to it being “one-day” anytime soon.   He was good with that. The more he witnessed Kaylen’s happiness as a doctor and heard her laughter when they were out with friends, the more he knew Kaylen didn’t want to start a family.

The night Joshua got home after helping his grandpa translate the letter from someone named  Mỹ, as he hit send on his email to his aunt, he found himself thinking, if aunt Laura can find this person for Grandpa, I will ask her to help me find my father.   Maybe by now, he wants a son. 

Hello dear readers,

Are you feeling some of what I’m feeling which is.  Wow! It’s the beginning of November and in a few weeks, it will be another new calendar year.  I love Fall. I love all seasons, and yet, sssshhhhh, don’t tell Winter, Spring, and Summer, but something touches my heart a tiny bit extra when Fall knocks.  (smile) 

Like Spring, when I feel that I’m eagerly awaiting the slowness of the trees to bud their greenery for the summer, and then poof, it’s May and everything is green, I find the same thing as Fall knocks.  I’m eagerly awaiting the breathtaking color changes and then poof, the leaves are down, my husband and I are clearing leaves out of our yard four, five, or six times (grin!), and I sense Winter will soon knock on the door as the sweatshirts and sweaters whisper yay! And my soul dances in joy feeling the coziness that comes from the gift of chilliness.

Always that dance of grace between opposites. Warm. Cool. Spring. Fall.

And light that always radiates in the dim and dark. True to the take your breath away views Nature offers, cameras never seem to capture the views that only Presence truly experiences.  Yet, I still try, and I peruse the photos in gratitude that I can return to a recollection of the sensation I felt in the moment. Like walking in our unlit bedroom, witnessing the sun glistening against the leaves, shining a radiant light through the window.

And I stood between both, centered in the promise that there is always Light.

May the radiance of Light always dance with you.

Wishing you a peace-filled start to your November.

The Creases Now Speak

Mary

The quote next to Mary’s name in her senior class yearbook reads I never realized until lately that women were supposed to be the inferior sex. Words spoken by Katharine Hepburn, who was also known for being headstrong, independent, and outspoken.

I am going to be just like her, Mary vowed. To her best friend Debra, her sister Patricia, her boyfriend Johnny. Most of all, to herself and the walls of her bedroom, each time she slammed her door shut in disgust at her mother who seemed anything but Katherine. Docile, helpless, and dissident. Or more like shrinking, Mary thought to herself each time she witnessed her mom jump up from the table, hurrying to wait on them during a meal.

More than once Mary’s father would get that displeasing tone in his voice insisting apologize immediately to your mother when Mary would speak her mind about how she wasn’t going to wait hand and foot on anyone.   She wasn’t going to be “Suzy homemaker”, and she certainly wasn’t going to marry a man who sat at the head of the table as if he was king, and his wife was his staff.  

Mary went to college, but unlike her friends who went so that they could find their husbands, Mary attended so that she could begin experiencing her independence. She didn’t want to teach or to be a nurse, as was the path most women chose.  Mary wanted to have a job in one of the high-rise office buildings dotting the Chicago skyline. Or New York City. Or San Francisco.

On her own. No Johnny. No parents. Her sister Patrica could come with her if she wanted to, but Mary knew she wouldn’t. Patrica would make their mom proud by getting married, having children, doting on her family, waiting on whoever Patricia would find to be her king.

Exhibiting the traits of her role model served Mary well while earning her degree in business management, a field dominated by men like her father. Meeting room tables and desks in which kings sat, expecting staff to follow their every command. Mr. Ward, her boss, was different. Mary got a job in downtown Chicago in a large corporation as an executive assistant. From the moment Mary began working for Mr. Ward, he sought her opinions.

Instead of telling her what to do, he asked her how she thought something should be done. When he asked her to scribe and type up letters, he also explained the business impact in the communications. Headstrong in his own right, Mr. Ward wasn’t afraid to be unconventional.  On more than one occasion he asked Mary to join a lunch with the knights of the round table, as Mary liked to think of the group of men gathered to make business deals over quiche Lorraine and a bourbon on the rocks.

To the men, Mary was there to scribe and be pleasing to the eye. To Mr. Ward, Mary was there to learn the inner workings of business for the day when she would be the queen at the tables of boardrooms and her corner office desk.

It is how she meant Henry, her husband. An ambitious, handsome, not needy man who wasn’t threatened by Mary’s independent nature and business acumen.   They had the same goals. Become vice presidents in their respective companies. No children. Travel abroad. An apartment on the 18^th floor overlooking Lake Michigan. Not wait on each other.

Mary’s mom never came to visit them in the city. Mary tried, offering to take her mom shopping or to a nice restaurant. Mom, you deserve to have someone serve you a meal for once. On the other end of the phone Mary would hear a soft sigh as her mom tsk tsked about fancy places and how Mary should save her money for a rainy day.  Then she would change the subject and her tone of voice, the delight unmistakable as she would tell Mary all about the latest things her two nieces were doing. Stephanie is earning all A’s and has become quite a young lady. Patrica says Stephanie is showing quite an interest in learning how to cook. Jessica came over last week and helped me in the garden. She really has a green thumb.

Mary can’t remember when her mom stopped asking when Henry and she were going to settle down and have children.   Her mom never expressed her disappointment in words. Only in sighs and tsk tsks when she would tell Mary about a church member the congregation was praying for who was unable to conceive. Mary didn’t know what was more disturbing.  That it seemed the end of the world if this person couldn’t have a baby.  Or that this individual found it comforting to tell an entire church something so personal.

Mary wonders how her mom would react to her recent news if she were still alive.   Would she be empathetic? Would she offer to come over and take care of Mary? Would she tsk tsk at the prospect that Mary could die, and her only legacy would be the money she bequeathed to her sister, niece, and great nephew?

Breast cancer. Stage IV.  It has spread to your lymph nodes. Usually, one to pay attention to every word in the conference room, Mary only heard radical mastectomy, chemo, 10%. And Henry’s words with as much confidence and conviction she is certain he exhibits in every business acquisition. You don’t know my wife, doctor.  She WILL be the one to make it 11%.

When they got home, Henry kissed her on the forehead as he asked her where she would like him to order take-out. Her cancer is simply another business problem to solve, and in his mind, they will win this deal, too.

Mary reached for the Eathai menu, swallowing the words she most wanted to say to Henry that she couldn’t recall ever saying out loud. 

I need you.

Dear readers,

Hello!   

Recently I was sharing with my students how each of us have this innate wisdom inside of us.  When we are still and quiet, and have opened our will (heart) to do so, we can tap into this inner knowing.   Often, this wisdom speaks without words, communicated through our bodies in movement.   In the stillness is not only the physical silence; it is also about us quieting and clearing our minds of its chatter, the often internal babble or ranting filled with judgment and doubt.   When we allow this subtle guidance to speak, we release barriers that inhibit us connecting in instinctive and natural ways.  

As some of you may already know from previous messages, one of my favorite parables is one passed on from Cherokee wisdom about the two wolves we feed.    In our dance of grace between opposites as human beings, in any given moment we are challenged to feed the wolf that embodies such things as joy, serenity, humility, kindness, empathy, forgiveness, compassion, faith, and love.  Or to feed the wolf that is filled with such things as anger, envy, doubt, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, inferiority, and superiority.   In this human experience we each live, every moment is a dance and we each choose in those same moments how we want to experience our humanity.  

Approximately twelve years ago I watched the movie “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”.  For those of you who have read my second book “Hope has a Cold Nose”, you may recall how I described the impact that movie had on me.   It included these words I wrote.  I found that I, too, desired to find and build 427 people into my scrapbook, twenty-fold.  In that way that Rainer Maria Rilke writes, and the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.   

I thought I knew exactly how this movie touched me until I lived these past twelve years.   I anticipate I am not done understanding the impact of my desire to build this scrapbook.   In this now moment, with the grace (and messaging) of the very large flock of black birds stopping at our yard on their migratory flight, I understand that my desire includes inspiring people to stay connected to that innate wisdom in each of us as human beings so that we will not lose our relationship to ourselves and as humanity. 

It is innate in us to be human, as it is innate in these beautiful black birds to flock together.  

It is innate in us to have two wolves, as it is innate in us to be of mind, body, and soul. 

It is innate in us to choose what we hear and see, as it is innate to life that the energy we embody is the legacy we leave.

I am becoming very aware of the energy I am embodying in every given moment, knowing that far greater than algorithms and the wealth of information accessible, how each of us our showing up as humans is what is shaping the future.      

May each of you know that, too.  YOU make a difference simply by BEING you. 

Thank you for being YOU dear readers.  Thank YOU for helping me build my scrapbook with the gift of each of you.  

The Creases Now Speak

Patricia

Throughout the years Patricia asked herself why it had been so important to her that who she married would be a man of faith, or better said, would show he was by attending church.

The first time she asked herself why was when she had to ask Edward to carry her over the threshold of their new home. After he set her down in the foyer and started walking into the living room.

She asked herself when she raged against God after her daughter Stephanie died of Leukemia. She questioned her choice when her church condemned to hell individuals like her daughter Laura for loving someone of the same sex.

Patricia condemned herself for her decision to choose the church when her husband Edward disowned his own flesh and blood when Laura told them she was a lesbian.

Patricia was remorseful that her dear Joshua felt he had to hide his marriage to her beautiful granddaughter-in-law Kaylen. Biracial marriage was also not accepted by her church. The only acceptance was marriage until death parts, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer.

For comfortable or for longing.

To cherish from “I do” forward or to take for granted after the honeymoon ends.

That is why she broke up with Johnny the summer after they graduated from high school. Because he didn’t attend church. Because he wouldn’t go with her when she asked him to.   

Patricia and Johnny started dating when they were juniors. Johnny was the handsome jock that all girls wanted to date. Football quarterback. Point guard in basketball. Pitcher in baseball. He did enough in classes to pass with B’s and C’s so that he wouldn’t jeopardize playing sports, but Johnny had no plans to attend college.   His plan was to work for his uncle who owned a local construction company.

Patricia was the opposite. The thought of standing in front of a bleacher full of spectators while she led them to cheer on the team made her queasy. She didn’t believe she had the body to be a cheerleader, so she never tried out.   Patricia was a straight-A student, and it was a given that she would be attending the Illinois Teachers College: Chicago South (now the Chicago State University).

They talked about getting married. Johnny was the first to mention it. He had picked up Patricia on a Saturday afternoon telling her he wanted to show her something he had found. After about 45 minutes of driving from the suburb where Patricia lived, Johnny stopped at a place where she had no idea where they were. She only knew there was a lot of trees clustered together in a vast meadow, and very few houses in a ten-mile radius. Patricia thought this must be what people meant when they referred to the “countryside.”   

Johnny came around to her side of the truck and opened her door. He was always an attentive gentleman that way. Opening vehicle and building doors. Pulling out her chair at a restaurant.

When Johnny took her hand and walked her to the center of a meadow, Patricia felt like a princess, one who would follow her prince anywhere. When she asked Johnny where they were, he looked around and into the horizon then looked down at the ground and she barely heard him as he said, “the place where I want to build a home for you and I and our family one day.” 

In that moment Patricia couldn’t wait for one day.   

Their fingers interlocked, Johnny led her in an imaginary square, showing her where the living room would be. The kitchen. Their master bedroom. A nursery. At one point Patricia stopped and closed her eyes, imagining Johnny carrying her over the threshold of their new home, not setting her down in the foyer. Instead, he would carry her down their hall, to their bedroom, gently laying her down on their bed. He would begin to slowly unbutton his shirt, and Patricia would wonder if she should begin to undress. She would be getting naked in front of a man for the first time. She would be making love.

As Patricia stood in the outline of her future home with her eyes closed, feeling a surge of heat and energy through her pelvic area of her body, she faintly heard “sex is for procreation; sex out of wedlock is a sin.”    

Patricia quickly opened her eyes and tried to shift her focus from the pleasurable ache in the mid-section of her body while she listened to Johnny talk about how he could build their home on the weekends and how he knew his uncle would help.

A few weeks later during dinner, Patricia’s parents were talking about a cousin who had just gotten engaged. Her mom was relating Patricia’s aunt and uncle’s concern that the fiancé did not attend church and how they feared their daughter was losing her way, especially given how she had talked back to them when they tried to tell her they didn’t think this young man was the right one for her.   They were deeply troubled that their daughter threatened to leave home, exclaiming they would never see her again if they tried to stop her from marrying the man she loved. Patrica’s mom looked at her and Mary as she said to their father “thank the Lord our girls have not gone astray; we are so blessed our girls are good girls.”

It was shortly after that Patrica began asking Johnny to attend church with her.

The first few times Johnny gave an excuse. He needed to help his mom around the house. His uncle asked him to work. When Johnny finally told Patricia that he believed in God and that he would always support her choice to attend church, but that he would never step foot in one except for their wedding, Patricia broke up with him.

She didn’t want to go astray and end up in hell.