Mom made my day (literally and figuratively). Plus she baked a cake and sent it in the mail. The joys of being in a family with Amish Tendencies - so tasty. Mom also wrote some critique of my writing a couple days ago that touched me deeply.

She said this...
hi back--I absolutely love your squirrel!! (btw, we're "doing" squirrels at Steele Creek this Wed!) I love the "num,num, num", and the squirrel's keeping on with its life! And I love your using "soul" (instead of "sole"--of your shoe?) I love that maybe the best...

So-o good you and Felicia write to each other:) I think your poem is Friends Journal style, too.

The parable is sort of complicated, as maybe all parables are (Jesus' ones actually appear more as take-offs to sermons,since that's how I've experienced them, like "The Parable of the Sower" who dropped his seed on dry land, where it didn't grow, etc) There probably are other parables that I don't know about...maybe Felicia does, tho.

I love how the you in this piece suddenly confront that squirrel...that is supposed, also, to be how "God" is there, smack dab in the flow of our intent lives. So, this piece of yours, alongside your eagle one, seems pretty "spiritual" to me.

Did this really happen? These two pieces of yours only prove to me that being alone, to experience these things, is so right.

Daddy was on target too. Our own email conversation when like this:

Happy birthday, Maggie. I remember vividly the day you were born.

Thanks Mom and Daddy for making this possible!