Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I finished a book, "Late Migrations" by Margaret Rendl, and really enjoyed it.  It's a memoir, which also includes stories from her older relatives.  It's hybrid structure appeals to me these days.  Her connection to the woods and her southern background echo my love of the woods, forged by where I've lived most of my life, and I spent two years in Alabama and six in Virginia as a child.  So much of the terrain is comforting to me, and yet I felt not southern, but alien.  My father was there to integrate the garment plants, and we were considered troublemakers.  We also were disturbed by the fact that all the work seemed to be done by black people who lived in separate towns.  My mother was the only woman she knew who did her own laundry, cooking and childcare.  I sensed how wrong the balance of power was, and the fact that we were part Indian meant I didn't identify with whiteness as this gift from god.  My parents told me one thing, but the people around us had a different assumption about how important they were.  Yet from the southern years came my best childhood friend, and she is a great support and comfort to me now.  Like the author of the book, she loves and observes birds in her woodsy yard on the outskirts of a tiny town.  As kids, our days were spent walking in the woods, riding our bikes ten miles to the river to swim, and dreaming of boys and movie stars and the next dance.  We've become more substantial since then.  At least I hope we have.