May 29, 2014. Maya Angelou died today. She also thought there is a place in our souls we have to struggle to keep from getting corrupted. I've been calling it A Piece of the Divine--the place that allows us--despite ourselves--to forgive, to sympathize, to walk away, to hold on, to build again, to dream anew.
Maya Angelou says it is what we protect when we say, "Back off. You are not allowed to hurt me beyond this point." She says it is also where we retreat to reconnect with everything divine. I, myself, believe it is where the rawest sense of what is right resides--stripped off of any social impositions or personal entitlement.
The courage one is able to summon in order to protect it has never ceased to surprise me, just as it has never ceased to fascinate me how much of that strength stems from its very fragility.
To discover someone else in this world describe it in precisely the way I reckon it had been a comfort. Today, with her passing, it feels like I am suffering a personal loss, and I grieve with those who, like me, have once been comforted.
