Last night I celebrated my 40th birthday with some dear friends. We all planned to attend the presentation at UNM Popejoy Hall by Maya Angelou and then go out to eat at Frontier Restaurant afterwards. The presentation was amazing and touched all of our hearts and really spoke to me on a deep level. But I was also touched by my sweet friends when they suprised me with a very generous present (a boom box!) and a beautiful card. Laura also treated me for dinner, which was completely unexpected, but much appreciated.
I had been missing my old homeschooling friends in South Carolina recently and felt that maybe my roots hadn't yet taken hold in New Mexico yet, since we have only been home for 9 months now...not much time to establish and develop wonderful friendships...or so I thought. Wow. Am I joyfully surprised. Thank you girlfriends! You are already very special to me!
Now a little bit about Maya Angelou's speech:
"We rise, and we rise," she said, "because we've had rainbows. A friend, a stranger, a family member who captured for us the nobleness of the human spirit."
Rounds of applause from the sold out UNM crowd greeted the legendary poet’s arrival on stage. Angelou silenced the audience with her deep alto voice by singing: “When it looked like the sun wasn’t going to shine anymore, God put a rainbow in the clouds.” Rainbows in the clouds, which symbolize hope for humanity in times of hardship, became the underlying thread throughout her talk.
Throughout the hour-long lecture, Angelou sprinkled her childhood memories with bits of humor and profound wisdom; she painted pictures of the people who were her rainbows in the clouds, such as her grandmother and her uncle.
“They were men and women, who, thanks to their courage and love, were able to become rainbows in our clouds. Each one of us has that probability, that possibility. If a human being dares to dream a great dream, that means you have the possibility to do that too,” she said.
Angelou said she grew up in a small village in Arkansas that was smaller than the Popejoy Hall stage Center. When she was seven, she moved north to St. Louis to live with her mother’s family, where she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. The experience traumatized her so deeply that she stopped talking for roughly five years, which is when her grandmother became a significant influence in her life.
“Even though I was mute, I was always told by her that I was very, very intelligent. She even predicted that I would become a great teacher,” she said, laughing.
Angelou also described her Uncle Willie, who was “black, poor, male and crippled” and how he overcame a number of obstacles. Throughout his life, he influenced many people, including the first black mayor of Little Rock and a white lawyer who became a member of the State Legislature. Both of these men attributed their success to her Uncle Willie.
“Who would have looked at him and thought that he could be a rainbow in the clouds?” Angelou said.
Angelou continued by stating the importance of making poetry an integral part of everyone’s lives, which she claims has always been a motivating factor for her.
“During those years that I didn’t speak, I memorized Shakespeare, Langston Hughes, Longfellow, Countee Cullen and Paul Lawrence Dunbar. We look to poetry for encouragement.”
She said that poetry offers support for those who are going through hard times, because one can read it and know that someone else has already experienced something just as difficult, and, more importantly, made it through.
She concluded by urging everyone to make the most out of life, since “it’s given to us to live but once. The noblest cause in the world is the liberation of the human mind. Know that you all have the privilege of becoming a rainbow in the clouds.”
**Maya's speech was so inspiring to me. Afterwards I left wanting to hear more. Laura and I both commented that we could sit in Maya's kitchen and just listen to her for hours. One short hour is just not enough, which is so ironic for me to say because I am just not much of a 'lecture girl'....usually end up bored to tears. But while listening to Maya, it was impossible not to stay perched on the edge of my seat soaking in every word, and trying to delve a little deeper into the meaning of her poetry and wisdom.
For me, the Rainbow theme alone was such a blessing and spoke directly into my heart. When I first received the calling to homeschool, I felt like Noah being told to build an ark....I wanted no part of it. I resisted in every sense of the word. And I prayed that God would send me a sign that the choice was the right thing. He sent me a striking and beautiful rainbow. And after the March 2005 accident, He has sent me not only sky rainbows, but also human rainbows, to help re-instill my faith and give me a sign of hope.
In the end, Maya's Rainbow theme touched a deep place in my soul.