Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Every neighborhood has it's secret delights.  Yesterday we took our grandson yet again to see the koi fish swimming in our neighbor's front yard, as well as their water lilies.  And along the way we saw "The Grotto" which really is a stone grotto with a pond you can see from the street.  We cross over the bridge between streets where the underground creek surfaces and stare at the water.  The creek goes under and up under and up along our streets.  We can hear the frogs singing all year long.  We have two small parks, one with the name "Round Park" because of it's shape, and if you go there you can see balls being chased by dogs and tramp among the leaves.  We also have a parkway that is our little strip of woods, where people stroll and walk their dogs and we can pretend we are in a forest.  I don't think about these places much consciously, but they enhance the ambiance of the neighborhood.  I'm reminded of our funky Fourth of July parades where kids decorate their bikes, a band plays on the back of a pickup truck and families and dogs are decked out in red, white and blue.  We have children ring the bells for the thirteen original states, a speech about what our country means to us, singing, watermelon, beer and cotton candy.  We're weathering the Trump era, hugging our values to our chests to remind us of what we hold dear, even if our President doesn't.