In the memoir, "The Color of Water," by James McBride, he and his mother collaborate to write about their biracial lives. The Color of Water is a book full of symbols. Three very important symbols represented in the book include Ruth’s bicycle, Mameh’s love for birds and Black Power. After the death of Ruth’s second husband, she began riding her bicycle though the all-black neighborhood, in which James and his family lived. “She would ride in slow motion across our street, Murdock Avenue It was her way of grieving, thought I didn’t know it then.” (McBride 7) James thinks that his mother’s bicycle symbolized her quirkiness and his consequent embarrassment. He had always known his mother was “different”. During James’ childhood, he sought logic for his mother eccentricities. As James grew older, he gained an intimate knowledge of his mother and began to understand things he could not figure out before. James McBride, the author, comes to view the bicycle as symbolic of his mother differences. Ruth rides the bicycle oblivious to others opinions. The bicycle also represents Ruth’s desire to embrace movement as both means of negotiating reality and an escape from reality. Along with this very significant symbol, Mameh’s love for birds is also very important. After everything Ruth went through, she still remembered when her family killed chickens on Yom Kippur. “She’d wave a live chicken over her head and say to the chicken, “You to death, me to life!” my father would take the chicken from her and kill it as a blood sacrifice That chicken is just showing God we’re thankful for living. It’s just a chicken. It’s not a bird who flies.” (McBride 218) Her mother, Mameh, reassured her that since the chicken was “not a bird who flies” it was acceptable to kill it. Mameh loved birds very much. She used to feed and sing to them, then shoo them away. She would sing in Yiddish, “Birdie, Birdie, fly away”