Maya Angelou died today.
I have loved her and respected her from a very great, hesitant distance. Like with John Paul II, however, death has made me determined to try to become closer to her.
This interview with her is very beautiful.
And for any students who may be reading this – past or present – this woman knew how to write. She knew what it means.
Aren’t the extraordinary events of your life very hard for the rest of us to identify with?
ANGELOU
Oh my God, I’ve lived a very simple life! You can say, Oh yes, at thirteen this happened to me and at fourteen . . . But those are facts. But the facts can obscure the truth, what it really felt like. Every human being has paid the earth to grow up. Most people don’t grow up. It’s too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That’s the truth of it. They honor their credit cards, they find parking spaces, they marry, they have the nerve to have children, but they don’t grow up. Not really. They get older. But to grow up costs the earth, the earth. It means you take responsibility for the time you take up, for the space you occupy. It’s serious business. And you find out what it costs us to love and to lose, to dare and to fail. And maybe even more, to succeed. What it costs, in truth. Not superficial costs—anybody can have that—I mean in truth. That’s what I write. What it really is like. I’m just telling a very simple story. (Maya Angelou via Paris Review)
Mysteries and Manners 