When I need a little hope, a shot of courage, some strength and inspiration, one of my favorite havens is the extraordinary Maya Angelou (1928-2014). This American poet, essayist, playwright, and activist has not only been one of the most influential literary voices in recent decades, but an inspiration to millions of people. From her comes so much wisdom anchored in her contagious joy of life, in her compassion and in the generosity that characterized her, that it is difficult to choose just a few lines to illustrate her work and her luminous legacy, which she raised based on talent and passionate strength.
Daughter of a working class family, abandoned by her father at three years of age and raped at eight, Maya Angelou gives us with her life an example of improvement.
In a memorable interview with journalist Bill Moyers, when he asked how he had managed to get by after the rape, he explained that he stopped talking for five years:
«To show you how something good can come out of evil, I will say that in those five years I read every book that was in the library of the school for blacks. I read every book I could get from the white school library. I memorized James Weldon Johnson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes.
I memorized everything Shakespeare, entire plays, fifty sonnets. I memorized Edgar Allan Poe, all the poetry ... I had never heard it before, but I learned it. He had Longfellow, Guy de Maupassant, Balzac, Rudyard Kipling (...). That evil was a tremendous evil, because rape of someone's young body often gives way to cynicism, and there are few things as tragic as a young cynic, because it means that this person has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing. In my case, staying silent saved me. And I was able to feed on human thought, human disappointments and triumphs, at least enough to succeed myself ».
And it is that one of the most striking features of Maya Angelou is undoubtedly her bravery: «I believe that having the courage to face evil, and transform it by force of will into something that is useful to our development, to our evolution , as individuals and as a collective, it is exciting and honorable (...). Courage is the most important of the virtues, because if you do not have courage you cannot practice the other virtues, you cannot say to a society that murders "I oppose your murders". You need courage to do that. In a way, I have been aware of that for a long time, and it has made me very happy (...). I think the most important thing, beyond discipline and creativity, is to dare to dare ». "Without bravery," he said, "we cannot be compassionate, authentic, generous, or honest." Without bravery, we can't dare be ourselves either: "If you always try to be normal, you will never discover how amazing you are." And she encouraged women to fight discrimination and stereotypes, which she knew so well for being a woman and a black woman: “Every time a woman has the courage to defend herself, perhaps without knowing it, without taking pride in it, she is defending All the women".
"Success," he said, "is to love life and dare to live it, and never give up on defeat, even if one has to endure many defeats (...). We are amazed at the beauty of the butterfly, but we almost never recognize the changes it has had to endure before achieving that beauty. ”
Joy was another outstanding feature of his character: «My mission in life is not simply to survive, but to flourish; and do it with a little passion, a little compassion, a bit of humor and some style (...). I don't trust anyone who won't laugh.
From the light that Maya Angelou radiated, the warmth of the generous love with which she lived came off: "Hate has caused many problems in the world, but even today it has not solved a single one," he warned. And because she lived with an open heart, Maya Angelou taught us not to build walls against others, to be freer:
You are only free when you realize that you do not belong anywhere, that you belong to all places and nowhere.