I'm covered in sap. And, potentially, tick-ridden, though I rather think not. We're returned from a long slow ramble at the lake. My mother, collector of rocks, plant-watcher, and naturalist extraordinaire, is napping again. Her mind was made for the lake, but her body, alas, was not. She nearly fell several times and we had some difficulty when her legs stopped working and we were a 1/2 mile away from the truck. I stuffed all the rocks in my pockets, grabbed up a walking stick, and she leaned all of her weight (precious little there is) on me and we made it out.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Before that we made the most extraordinary discovery: a page torn from a prayer book and a woman's watch hanging from a tree. I plucked them down and thought, how interesting. someone must be proselytizing even here. I showed them to my mother and she immediately said: "it's a suicide note." At which point a thousand shudders passed over through and beyond me. She pointed to the scripture (which, alas, I cannot even remember now--I'll ask her what it was when she wakes) and said that this particular one is used often by suicidal Christians. I was suddenly afraid to move, afraid any move I made would uncover a body. My mom thought for a bit about taking the paper and the watch with us but then decided that the right thing would be to leave it there. She said a prayer over the place and I, for one, am glad she did.

Ah, now she's awake. Dinner preparations must be undertaken. She has been cooking and baking up a storm, in between bouts of reading, journal-writing, napping, research, prayer, conversation, and cat-talk.

I have told you my mother is a mystic, haven't I? Perhaps I'll say more on this another time. Perhaps I will not.