🌿 Life’s Threads🪡 - The Privilege of Being Invited Inside

On trust, belonging, and the beauty of being invited in.

Before the doors opened, the lights were still warming up.

That’s how Riley remembered it.

Jack and Maryanne waiting with coffee in hand, the smell of cinnamon rolls coming from the kitchen, and that quiet sense of being trusted with something not quite finished.

She didn’t realize it at first, but the invitation itself changed her.

They could have hired anyone to design the addition for the Canyon Café. Instead, they asked her to come early, to see the space before the crowds arrived, before the noise, before the perfection.

They handed her a key.

That’s what being seen can feel like someone handing you a key.

Not because you earned it, but because they believe you’ll know what to do with it.

🤔 I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.

The feeling of being invited in before something is ready.

Before the world sees it polished and framed.

Most of us know the other side too well. The one where you’re kept at the edge, waiting to be called in only when everything looks presentable.

It’s safer that way, I suppose. But something is lost when we only show people the finished version.

When someone invites you in early, it’s not about privilege, it’s about trust. They’re saying, ‘You can handle the mess. You’ll still care about it even when it’s half-formed.’

That kind of trust builds something stronger than applause. It builds belonging.

🚪 I’ve been on both sides of that door.

In my years of coaching, I’ve sat with people while their projects were still a tangle of ideas and exhaustion. They didn’t need advice so much as presence.

And sometimes, I’ve been the one standing there, holding a dream that wasn’t ready for anyone else to see yet.

When someone looked at it and said, “I believe in this,” before it was ready, that stayed with me longer than any praise that came later.

Riley’s story at the Canyon Café isn’t really about architecture. It’s about being trusted to hold something while it’s still fragile.

Jack and Maryanne didn’t need a decorator. They needed someone who could see potential through the dust.

And Riley, after all her years of designing other people’s visions, needed that, too. She needed to remember what it feels like to be included before the grand opening.

When Val joined her to build the herb patio, and Raven came to help in the kitchen, it wasn’t just work. It was community. Every one of them knew the weight of being invited in early. They’d each had seasons of feeling left out or overlooked.

This time, they were on the inside together, creating something they could all belong to.

That’s why the soft opening matters so much.

By the time the café filled with light and laughter, it wasn’t just a celebration. It was gratitude. For being seen, for being trusted, and for being asked to come in before it was perfect.

That’s what I hope my readers feel when they open these posts.

Like you’ve been invited into something still taking shape.

Not polished, not finished, but alive.

The truth is, I don’t have everything figured out either.

The stories, the reflections, the women of Echo Canyon…they’re still being built, one conversation at a time.

When you show up here, comment, or read quietly from the edges, you’re stepping into the kitchen with me before the doors open.

And whether you realize it or not, that means something. It says, You belong in the making of this.

And belonging, at any age, is the most creative act of all.

So maybe that’s the lesson tucked inside Riley’s new patio and those silver herb troughs.

We don’t just build spaces for people to sit.

We build spaces where people can stay a little longer, because they are part of what makes it beautiful.

I’ve recently opened two doors to my stories.

The first door leads into the fiction: the drafted chapters, the daily doses, and a few reflections on what it’s like to become a novelist in my seventies. Always free.

The second door is wider, and I dare you to be brave enough to step through it. Inside Story Insiders, you’ll join the women of the canyon as they share their most private pages. The ones free readers never see. You’ll sit at the table with me and feel what it’s like to live this next chapter, together.

Sometimes the real story begins after the page ends.

I’m inviting you to come inside. What happens next isn’t for everyone to see.