Telling the Truth

I've spent the last few days reading Rosemary Daniell's candid memoir detailing her Southern upbringing. I wish I could just run into her on the street and tell her "thank you." Thank you, Rosemary Daniell, for telling the truth. Thank you for helping me to understand the effects of red clay and magnolia blossoms and hot August days in Georgia over my own sensibilities, outsider that I am.

And thank you, too, for shocking me. You've reminded me that as long as there are people I haven't met and books that I've never read (or written), there are worlds I've never seen. I had almost lost hope in discovering anything new.

She writes, "Yes, the way I feel about being a woman in the South is the way I feel about the oleander that blooms in June: though it's said that the sap, even brushed against one's skin, is toxic, I carelessly break the branches, stick the ravishing flowers into my hair..."