I am so here for incendiary footnotes, and number 5 did not disappoint. I always come away from your writing thinking differently about things than when I started. I’m so grateful!
I want to do a whole newsletter someday that is just footnotes! Because I love footnotes so much! It's my favorite medium for writing. But yes, FIVE WAS A DOOZY.
Have you ever read Nabokov’s Pale Fire? It’s a novel that primarily consists of utterly bonkers footnotes on a long poem. Even the index is weirdly funny.
What a fascinating read. That Daniel Harris was a piece of work…I would have found it very hard to be a mom, especially of small kids, without a purse. Tangentially I have often wondered what the Queen carried in her purse. She always carried one but what could she have possibly needed that her attendants wouldn’t have been ready to hand her?
OH! I LOVE this question about the queen. Someone has to have written about this right?! I feel like you just found my next rabbit hole for me! And yes, it would be impossible to be a parent to small kids without a bag of some sort! Riley carries a fanny pack everywhere for just this reason!
Good work, as usual (I subscribe). But not enjoyable. I'm not sure whether the parable of the purse or Harris's misogyny is more disturbing. Harris is so extreme I can almost laugh him off. The parable of the purse hits close to home.
When you write "There is no Parable of the Pocket. Men are never reduced to what they carry." the first sentence is true to my knowledge, but the second sentence may warrant a footnote for Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried." It's well known in my circles and an important read for me personally, the title chapter has been anthologized, and the book is now showing up on banned book lists making it newly interesting.
Oh my interest is piqued! Adding that book to my nightstand pile. Thank you so much, Christian! And yes, Harris was so over the top, it felt like parody. I guess the same can be said of the parable when viewed objectively! But it hits close to home for me too. Than you so much for reading and for subscribing. It means so much to me!
My partner, a historian, calls purses "oppression bags." His theory is that as women moved out of the home and into the public sphere, purses were meant to be a reminder of the obligations of home and care work. And this seems at least somewhat likely--couture has always been a male-dominated industry.
Purses can be baggage, but they can also be dangerous. Many a woman has been grabbed or strangled by her purse straps. And how many of us carry our partners' detritus, because it "doesn't fit in their pockets?"
This would be an interesting conversation to have with him! Many academics theorize the purses represent liberation for many reasons including that women didn't have to rely on men to carry their things as purses became larger. I've certainly seen the oppression theory too! I can see it both ways but lean towards the former.
I also wonder - why don't men carry more with them? Shouldn't they be as ready as many purse carriers are to dress a little wound, offer an ibuprofen or have room to carry the little burdens of others? I loved when Riley started carrying a fanny pack everywhere. Now my purse can be smaller because he carries half our family's needs when we're out and about. (My purse is a fanny pack too!)
This article is worth a paid subscription! I grew up in a household where my dad taught me about car maintenance and my my mom taught my brothers to sew. No task in the house would be relegated to just one sex. My brother used his sewing skills to solve the “no room in the pockets” dilemma by sewing compartments into his shirt sleeves to carry his knives (yes- knives plural!) I love the former practice of women’s clothing having hidden pockets. I find that my clothing choices always include well placed pockets so I don’t have to carry a purse. Not for sexual freedom reasons (!!) but for personal safety.
Oh my goodness, thank you! I love all of this! What an amazing house to grow up in! I loathe carrying everything I need in big pockets, but purely for sensory reasons! I can totally see the appeal otherwise. I do tend to lean toward cross body bags, I like how they feel secured compared to other bags. I currently carry a Baggu fanny pack that I love. Brontë, my 4 year old, is always looking for clothes with big enough pockets for all her treasures. I may need to follow your brothers lead and start sewing extra pockets on her sleeves.
If clothing manufacturers would just GIVE US GOOD POCKETS!!! I mean, why are there memes about someone commenting how pretty a dress is and the woman saying "Thanks, it has pockets!"
Two of my nieces ended up choosing their wedding gowns because they had pockets. I don't know that women WANT to carry purses but how else are we supposed to carry our driver's license, credit card, cash and chap stick/lipstick? You could put it in your bra but....
I carry a book with me a lot of the time, so I need a bag of some sort just for that. But I do love a good pocket for things like chapstick. I love wearing dresses purely because of how functional their pockets are compared to jean pockets. I keep hoping Katharine Hepburn trousers will come back so that my pants pockets can be deep as my skirt pockets. Someday!
I've got a hefty bosom and there is a little area at the top of my breasts where my bra gaps and it's perfect for a lipstick. No one knows it's there. It's like a secret depository for the Twin Cities Bank. ;-)
i love this, especially footnote 5--good GRIEF! The story told by LDS leaders of the purse and womanhood... ugh just so enraging. When will we not have white men in thrall to ideals of victorian empire?! ugh.
As a lover of purses (I think by the time I was 16, I had about 20 different kinds), I loved this essay. I think about the things I carried in those purses and how they meant so much to me, and how the stage of my life looks now with the diaper bag I carry. I have a small purse for when I’m going somewhere without my children, but because it took a lot to get my children here, I like the heft of the diaper bag—for what it means to me. Lots of thoughts to tease through because of this essay. Excellent writing, as always.
I am so glad you liked it!! I LOVE how you write about loving the heft of the diaper bag, because of your path to motherhood. That is BEAUTIFUL. I am going to be thinking about that particular weight all night.
Thank you a zillion times over for naming the amount of time it takes to write and describing each component. Like really - THANK YOU. Thanks for naming the work of it, the craft of it and the damn time it takes.
and...”ink that slid across the paper like frosting” made me smile so hard. Dude - fabulous description!
and, I totally enjoyed thinking about what’s in my purse (the wine bottle opener in the same side pocket as the pepper spray?!).
Beth Anne, I am so grateful for this comment! I felt very, very nervous about including the production details! It was a move born of panic. Total transparency, I sat down this past week and looked at all the money producing this newsletter takes. With childcare, my academic journal subscriptions, and all the other expenses, I am very much in the red. Like, *truly concerning can't sleep* in the red. So I am going to be experimenting with the best way to share the labor required for each essay moving forward. I'm also throwing all my eggs in this basket at the same time. No more freelance. Only newsletter. Consistent posting schedule. More paid-only content. So! A big running LEAP! Thank you so much for being here for it!
Meg - while I loved the essay - truly hilarious and horrifying and coming from a fundamentalist Christian background - way too familiar - the call out around the cost to produce writing resonates with me profoundly. OMG I think this is one of my first times posting so hold tight while I breathe a second.
To be totally honest, whatever first thing I read from you, framed in the please pay me because childcare costs money, had me hooked. You are my tribe.
I’ve worked for non-profits or the public sector my whole career - I’m terrible at making money and even so, changed to contract work last year so I could read and write and live more and it is terrifying.
Last week I edited an essay (again) and submitted to journals following individual formatting requests each time with a new cover letter and revised another book chapter and researched and and and all the things.
To start my day with your essay with this clear naming of the time and work - HECK YES! I feel seen. Thank you. And your writing ROCKS. Just sayin’.
I’m with Beth Anne. Please continue to talk about the actual costs of this labor. Writing well is a craft, and in the age of oversaturated media, it’s a true privilege to read quality work. I’m willing to pay for that.
I came to say the same thing. Listing how much time and the components was eye-opening and so interesting. I'm not sure I'd love it if it happened at the front of every newsletter, but it really brought home the cost of writing. (And this made me glad I am already a subscriber.)
The competing urges when my husband asks whether I have something in my bag - to scream "why don't you carry a bag if you think our kid will need snacks, rather than assume I have it covered" -- and simultaneously feeling so proud of past-me for remembering to pack snacks, to have a bag big enough to hold them, and organized enough for them to be found. conflict abounds in my head and my heart!
And the delight of just carrying my little cross body when I am going out alone.
Oh I TOTALLY understand this feeling and have had it in so many aspects of my life. The frustration that I am expected by so many different people to be the one holding everything together and the relief/pride/contentment when I am actually holding everything together.*
Oof. Cook's talk. Yikes. Somehow I missed that one, but that was also the era of Julie Beck's "Mother's Who Know", that one talk about the father going with out lunch for a year so he could by his wife a pressing machine to make it easier for her to iron all the shirts for the men in the family, even though she was in so much pain from cancer, and Elaine S. Dalton....being Elaine S. Dalton.
It's crazy to me, 6 men who can't iron!! My dad was the Sunday morning ironer. You'd come downstairs, ready for church and he'd turn you around, saying I need to iron that skirt/dress/ shirt.
I think you could write a whole article about why men think carrying a small bag is not manly. My adult gay son carries a small cross body bag with him at all times. It was so refreshing one day when we were at a restaurant and he reached in his bag, pulled out a small hand santizer and passed it to me. I felt the full circle of caring from our "purses" had come around.
This is so lovely. Riley carries a fanny pack and it is the actual best! He always has chapstick with him, so the kids go to him for their constantly chapped lips. I love that they are learning men carry care items too!
My Pappaw always had original flavored Chapstick in his pocket when I was growing up. Every time he used it he put some on me too. And it seriously just hit me that maybe that's why I'm so fascinated today with lip stick. I can't smell Chapstick and not think of him.
I graduated high school in 1989. That makes me 51 now. But it's funny how your 14 year old purse and my 51 year old purse are so similar.
I currently have 3 glitter gel pens (these Pentel Arts Krazy Pop Iridescent Gel Pen at 1.0mm Bold Line are AMAZING from https://amzn.to/3T5mq2j), 2 tortoise shell barrettes to try and control the red curls, my phone holds my music now instead of a CD, 3 Beautycounter lip glosses and my favorite autumn L'Oreal lipstick (#839 Cinnamon Toast), my pink sunglasses with mirrored lenses (now RX ones - but when I heard Miranda Lambert's Pink Sunglasses song I had to have a pair), my red wallet from Levenger, and lastly my flowered spiral bound notebook. Are we sisters from another mother? :)
I'll also tell you about your Dad's receipt what I told my Mom who keeps in her wallet the original note left on the last bouquet of flowers my dad gave her before he died...........make a copy and keep that one in your wallet. Put the original one away. She would be bereft if she lost the original or someone stole her purse/wallet.
So, I am friends with the mother of the girl whose purse was found. The family is in my stake and for a while I was in the stake YW presidency, but after this incident happened. Sedgewick's wife was the stake YW pres for a neighboring stake, so not this girl's actual leader. Not that it matters. I know the women who were looking through that purse. They made their callings their full-time jobs. I'm a writer, which, as you know, has to be a full time job to be profitable. I also subbed high school to supplement our income because, as you know, writing doesn't really pay all that well (especially when you write for a Church-adjacent publisher, which I did at the time). My church job couldn't be my full-time job, but the expectation was that it would be, especially when there were big multi-stake activities like the one where this purse was found. Stake YM leaders often couldn't put in the same amount of time because they had, you guessed it, jobs. For years I haven't been able to put my finger on why this purse parable bothered me. I thought maybe it was because my daughters' purses (when they carry them) would NEVER have recipes and FSOY pamphlets (my oldest tore hers to pieces after reading it) and all the other things that make a girl "virtuous." They know how to bake, but they also know how to earn money doing it. I wasn't raised to think of "homemaking" as the highest ideal I could strive for, and I never wanted my girls to feel that way either. I taught them to honor & respect the women who do and that they could make that choice if they want, but they don't have to. All of this is a long way of saying, thank you for articulating why that purse story never resonated with me. Also, I adore Katie Porter and campaigned for her before redistricting took her away from me. I hated seeing the Sedgwick signs knowing we shared the same religion but were miles apart in how we apply its precepts in our own lives, yet he's what people think of when they think Mormon. Anyway, this is a very long way of saying I loved this article. It resonated with me so much more than the parable of the purse ever has.
This is FASCINATING. I really tried to avoid writing about the girl because the parable has always felt like such an invasion of her privacy. No one should be held up to the world as the ideal of womanhood. But I've wondered about her - if she exists, if she's okay, if she feels one way or the other about the parable - since it was told. She's not *much* younger than me. I was 26 in 2011. She'd be an adult alongside me now, I guess is all I am saying. And I've just worried about her. That kind of story being told about you would be...a burden. Even if you believed in every bit of its message. So I just feel some great relief here with your comment. Because I am so glad that somewhere in that girl's life at some point, there was someone like you. You are an amazing mother. I am so glad your daughters have you too. Thank you so much for sharing all of this. Thank you, thank you.
I am so here for incendiary footnotes, and number 5 did not disappoint. I always come away from your writing thinking differently about things than when I started. I’m so grateful!
I want to do a whole newsletter someday that is just footnotes! Because I love footnotes so much! It's my favorite medium for writing. But yes, FIVE WAS A DOOZY.
Have you ever read Nabokov’s Pale Fire? It’s a novel that primarily consists of utterly bonkers footnotes on a long poem. Even the index is weirdly funny.
I have not! But obviously I must!
I think I feel about parentheticals in my own writing the way you feel about footnotes. :)
What a fascinating read. That Daniel Harris was a piece of work…I would have found it very hard to be a mom, especially of small kids, without a purse. Tangentially I have often wondered what the Queen carried in her purse. She always carried one but what could she have possibly needed that her attendants wouldn’t have been ready to hand her?
OH! I LOVE this question about the queen. Someone has to have written about this right?! I feel like you just found my next rabbit hole for me! And yes, it would be impossible to be a parent to small kids without a bag of some sort! Riley carries a fanny pack everywhere for just this reason!
Good work, as usual (I subscribe). But not enjoyable. I'm not sure whether the parable of the purse or Harris's misogyny is more disturbing. Harris is so extreme I can almost laugh him off. The parable of the purse hits close to home.
When you write "There is no Parable of the Pocket. Men are never reduced to what they carry." the first sentence is true to my knowledge, but the second sentence may warrant a footnote for Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried." It's well known in my circles and an important read for me personally, the title chapter has been anthologized, and the book is now showing up on banned book lists making it newly interesting.
Oh my interest is piqued! Adding that book to my nightstand pile. Thank you so much, Christian! And yes, Harris was so over the top, it felt like parody. I guess the same can be said of the parable when viewed objectively! But it hits close to home for me too. Than you so much for reading and for subscribing. It means so much to me!
My partner, a historian, calls purses "oppression bags." His theory is that as women moved out of the home and into the public sphere, purses were meant to be a reminder of the obligations of home and care work. And this seems at least somewhat likely--couture has always been a male-dominated industry.
Purses can be baggage, but they can also be dangerous. Many a woman has been grabbed or strangled by her purse straps. And how many of us carry our partners' detritus, because it "doesn't fit in their pockets?"
Maybe it's time we take back OUR pockets.
This would be an interesting conversation to have with him! Many academics theorize the purses represent liberation for many reasons including that women didn't have to rely on men to carry their things as purses became larger. I've certainly seen the oppression theory too! I can see it both ways but lean towards the former.
I also wonder - why don't men carry more with them? Shouldn't they be as ready as many purse carriers are to dress a little wound, offer an ibuprofen or have room to carry the little burdens of others? I loved when Riley started carrying a fanny pack everywhere. Now my purse can be smaller because he carries half our family's needs when we're out and about. (My purse is a fanny pack too!)
This article is worth a paid subscription! I grew up in a household where my dad taught me about car maintenance and my my mom taught my brothers to sew. No task in the house would be relegated to just one sex. My brother used his sewing skills to solve the “no room in the pockets” dilemma by sewing compartments into his shirt sleeves to carry his knives (yes- knives plural!) I love the former practice of women’s clothing having hidden pockets. I find that my clothing choices always include well placed pockets so I don’t have to carry a purse. Not for sexual freedom reasons (!!) but for personal safety.
Oh my goodness, thank you! I love all of this! What an amazing house to grow up in! I loathe carrying everything I need in big pockets, but purely for sensory reasons! I can totally see the appeal otherwise. I do tend to lean toward cross body bags, I like how they feel secured compared to other bags. I currently carry a Baggu fanny pack that I love. Brontë, my 4 year old, is always looking for clothes with big enough pockets for all her treasures. I may need to follow your brothers lead and start sewing extra pockets on her sleeves.
This was wonderful. Thank you.
If clothing manufacturers would just GIVE US GOOD POCKETS!!! I mean, why are there memes about someone commenting how pretty a dress is and the woman saying "Thanks, it has pockets!"
Two of my nieces ended up choosing their wedding gowns because they had pockets. I don't know that women WANT to carry purses but how else are we supposed to carry our driver's license, credit card, cash and chap stick/lipstick? You could put it in your bra but....
I carry a book with me a lot of the time, so I need a bag of some sort just for that. But I do love a good pocket for things like chapstick. I love wearing dresses purely because of how functional their pockets are compared to jean pockets. I keep hoping Katharine Hepburn trousers will come back so that my pants pockets can be deep as my skirt pockets. Someday!
I've got a hefty bosom and there is a little area at the top of my breasts where my bra gaps and it's perfect for a lipstick. No one knows it's there. It's like a secret depository for the Twin Cities Bank. ;-)
i love this, especially footnote 5--good GRIEF! The story told by LDS leaders of the purse and womanhood... ugh just so enraging. When will we not have white men in thrall to ideals of victorian empire?! ugh.
The way that era has a HOLD on this one. It's just...infuriating.
It was the joke about how many times Harris asked a girlfriend to carry his stuff in her purse for me :)
I AM SO PLEASED ABOUT THIS.
As a lover of purses (I think by the time I was 16, I had about 20 different kinds), I loved this essay. I think about the things I carried in those purses and how they meant so much to me, and how the stage of my life looks now with the diaper bag I carry. I have a small purse for when I’m going somewhere without my children, but because it took a lot to get my children here, I like the heft of the diaper bag—for what it means to me. Lots of thoughts to tease through because of this essay. Excellent writing, as always.
I am so glad you liked it!! I LOVE how you write about loving the heft of the diaper bag, because of your path to motherhood. That is BEAUTIFUL. I am going to be thinking about that particular weight all night.
Thank you a zillion times over for naming the amount of time it takes to write and describing each component. Like really - THANK YOU. Thanks for naming the work of it, the craft of it and the damn time it takes.
and...”ink that slid across the paper like frosting” made me smile so hard. Dude - fabulous description!
and, I totally enjoyed thinking about what’s in my purse (the wine bottle opener in the same side pocket as the pepper spray?!).
Beth Anne, I am so grateful for this comment! I felt very, very nervous about including the production details! It was a move born of panic. Total transparency, I sat down this past week and looked at all the money producing this newsletter takes. With childcare, my academic journal subscriptions, and all the other expenses, I am very much in the red. Like, *truly concerning can't sleep* in the red. So I am going to be experimenting with the best way to share the labor required for each essay moving forward. I'm also throwing all my eggs in this basket at the same time. No more freelance. Only newsletter. Consistent posting schedule. More paid-only content. So! A big running LEAP! Thank you so much for being here for it!
Meg - while I loved the essay - truly hilarious and horrifying and coming from a fundamentalist Christian background - way too familiar - the call out around the cost to produce writing resonates with me profoundly. OMG I think this is one of my first times posting so hold tight while I breathe a second.
To be totally honest, whatever first thing I read from you, framed in the please pay me because childcare costs money, had me hooked. You are my tribe.
I’ve worked for non-profits or the public sector my whole career - I’m terrible at making money and even so, changed to contract work last year so I could read and write and live more and it is terrifying.
Last week I edited an essay (again) and submitted to journals following individual formatting requests each time with a new cover letter and revised another book chapter and researched and and and all the things.
To start my day with your essay with this clear naming of the time and work - HECK YES! I feel seen. Thank you. And your writing ROCKS. Just sayin’.
I’m with Beth Anne. Please continue to talk about the actual costs of this labor. Writing well is a craft, and in the age of oversaturated media, it’s a true privilege to read quality work. I’m willing to pay for that.
It worked for me! I’ve read & loved many of your pieces and always think I should subscribe. This pitch was what pushed me to actually do it.
I came to say the same thing. Listing how much time and the components was eye-opening and so interesting. I'm not sure I'd love it if it happened at the front of every newsletter, but it really brought home the cost of writing. (And this made me glad I am already a subscriber.)
The competing urges when my husband asks whether I have something in my bag - to scream "why don't you carry a bag if you think our kid will need snacks, rather than assume I have it covered" -- and simultaneously feeling so proud of past-me for remembering to pack snacks, to have a bag big enough to hold them, and organized enough for them to be found. conflict abounds in my head and my heart!
And the delight of just carrying my little cross body when I am going out alone.
Oh I TOTALLY understand this feeling and have had it in so many aspects of my life. The frustration that I am expected by so many different people to be the one holding everything together and the relief/pride/contentment when I am actually holding everything together.*
*this is a very rare occurence.
Oof. Cook's talk. Yikes. Somehow I missed that one, but that was also the era of Julie Beck's "Mother's Who Know", that one talk about the father going with out lunch for a year so he could by his wife a pressing machine to make it easier for her to iron all the shirts for the men in the family, even though she was in so much pain from cancer, and Elaine S. Dalton....being Elaine S. Dalton.
A ROUGH ERA ALL AROUND. I totally forgot about the pressing machine detail. Oh my gosh.
FIVE SONS, MEG! And a husband! All patting themselves on the back for the pressing machine, instead of just...ironing their shirts themselves.
Like. It sounds like satire! But it was said in earnest!
It's crazy to me, 6 men who can't iron!! My dad was the Sunday morning ironer. You'd come downstairs, ready for church and he'd turn you around, saying I need to iron that skirt/dress/ shirt.
I think you could write a whole article about why men think carrying a small bag is not manly. My adult gay son carries a small cross body bag with him at all times. It was so refreshing one day when we were at a restaurant and he reached in his bag, pulled out a small hand santizer and passed it to me. I felt the full circle of caring from our "purses" had come around.
This is so lovely. Riley carries a fanny pack and it is the actual best! He always has chapstick with him, so the kids go to him for their constantly chapped lips. I love that they are learning men carry care items too!
My Pappaw always had original flavored Chapstick in his pocket when I was growing up. Every time he used it he put some on me too. And it seriously just hit me that maybe that's why I'm so fascinated today with lip stick. I can't smell Chapstick and not think of him.
I graduated high school in 1989. That makes me 51 now. But it's funny how your 14 year old purse and my 51 year old purse are so similar.
I currently have 3 glitter gel pens (these Pentel Arts Krazy Pop Iridescent Gel Pen at 1.0mm Bold Line are AMAZING from https://amzn.to/3T5mq2j), 2 tortoise shell barrettes to try and control the red curls, my phone holds my music now instead of a CD, 3 Beautycounter lip glosses and my favorite autumn L'Oreal lipstick (#839 Cinnamon Toast), my pink sunglasses with mirrored lenses (now RX ones - but when I heard Miranda Lambert's Pink Sunglasses song I had to have a pair), my red wallet from Levenger, and lastly my flowered spiral bound notebook. Are we sisters from another mother? :)
I'll also tell you about your Dad's receipt what I told my Mom who keeps in her wallet the original note left on the last bouquet of flowers my dad gave her before he died...........make a copy and keep that one in your wallet. Put the original one away. She would be bereft if she lost the original or someone stole her purse/wallet.
Oh, and theses pens I mention above totally glide like frosting across the paper.
So, I am friends with the mother of the girl whose purse was found. The family is in my stake and for a while I was in the stake YW presidency, but after this incident happened. Sedgewick's wife was the stake YW pres for a neighboring stake, so not this girl's actual leader. Not that it matters. I know the women who were looking through that purse. They made their callings their full-time jobs. I'm a writer, which, as you know, has to be a full time job to be profitable. I also subbed high school to supplement our income because, as you know, writing doesn't really pay all that well (especially when you write for a Church-adjacent publisher, which I did at the time). My church job couldn't be my full-time job, but the expectation was that it would be, especially when there were big multi-stake activities like the one where this purse was found. Stake YM leaders often couldn't put in the same amount of time because they had, you guessed it, jobs. For years I haven't been able to put my finger on why this purse parable bothered me. I thought maybe it was because my daughters' purses (when they carry them) would NEVER have recipes and FSOY pamphlets (my oldest tore hers to pieces after reading it) and all the other things that make a girl "virtuous." They know how to bake, but they also know how to earn money doing it. I wasn't raised to think of "homemaking" as the highest ideal I could strive for, and I never wanted my girls to feel that way either. I taught them to honor & respect the women who do and that they could make that choice if they want, but they don't have to. All of this is a long way of saying, thank you for articulating why that purse story never resonated with me. Also, I adore Katie Porter and campaigned for her before redistricting took her away from me. I hated seeing the Sedgwick signs knowing we shared the same religion but were miles apart in how we apply its precepts in our own lives, yet he's what people think of when they think Mormon. Anyway, this is a very long way of saying I loved this article. It resonated with me so much more than the parable of the purse ever has.
This is FASCINATING. I really tried to avoid writing about the girl because the parable has always felt like such an invasion of her privacy. No one should be held up to the world as the ideal of womanhood. But I've wondered about her - if she exists, if she's okay, if she feels one way or the other about the parable - since it was told. She's not *much* younger than me. I was 26 in 2011. She'd be an adult alongside me now, I guess is all I am saying. And I've just worried about her. That kind of story being told about you would be...a burden. Even if you believed in every bit of its message. So I just feel some great relief here with your comment. Because I am so glad that somewhere in that girl's life at some point, there was someone like you. You are an amazing mother. I am so glad your daughters have you too. Thank you so much for sharing all of this. Thank you, thank you.
Loved this piece so much. (And you crushed it with Canva!) Thanks for this, Meg.
AH Your Canva comment made me laugh, thank you!