Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Two neighborhood friends visited me this afternoon, bringing back the novel I'd lent them which I wrote and was published in 1993, a lifetime ago. I feel quite distant from who I was then, just having moved back to here and having suffered the death of both my parents in a 10 month period. That was a long time ago. It was good to see them again, and they brought their little dog with them. She was very well behaved. We talked about books and finally about my daughter's virtual service and my friend's wife's death. She has moved on and came with her new partner, and I am trying to do the same. Her new partner is delightful and gave me some recommendations of books by authors I'd never heard of, which is always a treat. There is sorrow, there is joy and both are so interlaced that they hold us up and keep us awake and in the present. I showed my friend my first edition of Gerald Manley Hopkins' poems. A few years ago we discovered that as children we had both memorized "Spring and Fall to a Young Child" and could still recite it from memory. We have a heart connection, my friend and I.