Begin Where You Are
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Exploring Boundaries
Boundaries were not something I grew up with.
I was the first of seven.
A good girl. My mother and father never talked to me in that “setting boundaries” tone.
There were rules, curfews, expectations, and I followed them.
My father was a sergeant in the Air Force.
Not as low as an airman.
But definitely not as high as an officer.
We lived in the sergeant’s section on bases.
There were fences around each housing section.
I had friends in each section.
Those were boundaries my father was not intimidated by and encouraged us to cross.
My mother’s mother, Stella, did set boundaries.
She made it absolutely clear in her arrogant self-righteous tone of voice
we were not to run with Mexicans and riffraff.
She made a distinction between white trash,
people without manners, and us. 
Even though Stella was the wife of a poor Texas cotton farmer,
struggling to raise her seven children in a house just this side of a shack,
she still clung to her plantation roots.
She made sure we dressed up to go to town.
And our posture was erect.
And while her intentions may have been proactive—
to raise her family to be proud regardless of their financial status,
underneath it all there was a defensiveness answering the question
who do you think you are?
I never heard the question spoken out loud,
but I definitely felt it from the town’s people.
