Happy Valentine's Day!

My husband found this for me today.
It's the rough draft of a Mother's Day poem written by my son, Joey, when he'd just turned 11.
I will leave the punctuation, spelling and capitalization as in its charming original.
--------------
marvolous is she
M - mom qualities that she has a lot of
O - other stuff she's good at
^ outstanding mom that she is
T - taught me how to live
teacher of me
H - ha ha is her laugh
happiness she brings to me
E - ever forgiving, she is
eternally grateful am I
R - Ruth is her name
reluctant she is not

M - moron, she is not
mother of my lifetime
O - ouchies she makes better
our love will never end
M - merturnity clothes she wears
my great mother she is

I love you

--------------Joe is a songwriter today.
I bet he's writing songs and sweet poems for his wife, now.

We don't know, sometimes, the seeds we sow, in the daily work we take on.
We can't tell if they're pretty weeds or heirloom roses until time has passed.

Sometimes our good ideas take root and blossom into beauty that changes others at the same time it helps us.
Sometimes our ideas are seeds that fall on rocky ground -- they can't take root without help from others.

Books are like that.
They spring from a germ of an idea, but they need nourishment to grow into a full book.
So many hands take part in bringing up a book, and it's not just the obvious, the author, the long-suffering partner/spouse of the author, the critique group, the editor, agent, designers, copy editors, publicist, salespeople, librarians, teachers, booksellers, various specialists, the reviewers, the discerning readers...

Books need communities in order to grow.

Authors need friends, connections with humanity that sprout ideas and inklings and what-if's.
Writing can be a lonesome career, but no writer writes alone.
Out of life springs new life.
Out of all of us spring new books, new music, new poetry, new ideas, new ways of looking at what has continued for many thousands of years.
We are the collective creators of art, inspired by each other and by everything around us.
Even if you don't feel creative today, you are inspiring someone else. That's the beauty of our inter-connectedness.

Happy Valentines Day!
May you find little surprises today and throughout the year that make you feel good, that make you feel loved, that make you feel creative.