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| Murmur of the Mother Tongue, A. Díaz, 1993 |
At the end
of May the world lost a great person, a powerful woman, intellect, and
humanitarian; the death of Maya Angelou was one of those events that left many
of us speechless. Over the last two months, I have managed to write down an
accounting of my personal moment with Maya Angelou, it was the briefest of
meetings in the most appropriate place, a book store.
It must have been around 1980. I
drove into Montclair village, an Oakland neighborhood, to shop at what was then
known as Village Books. As I turned onto the narrow one-way block of Antioch
Court, I saw a statuesque black woman on the sidewalk, gliding in the direction
of Village Books.
My eyes
widened and my mouth went slack. “That’s Maya Angelou,” I said to the empty car
interior.
“My God, that’s Maya Angelou.”
“That must
be Maya Angelou.”
“I’m sure
that’s her.”
Following
her with my intermittent gaze, I saw her enter the bookstore. I was lucky
to find a parking spot on the always busy street, and as I pushed coins into
the meter, the rhythm of my heart gathered momentum. Walking toward the
bookstore, elements of I Know Why the
Caged Bird Sings came to mind.
“Oh my God,” I said silently, “Maya
Angelou”. As I entered the store I wondered what I could say to her. Could I
tell her how much the book meant to me? Should I single out a particular aspect
of the book? Maybe I could ask her an erudite question. Then her voice floated
forward from the back of the small shop as the saleswoman spoke with her. They
exchanged sentences, I presumed, though exact words softened into a sweet
audible cotton candy. Just the tone of her voice was delicious.
Where is
she exactly, I wondered, positioning myself in one of the outside aisles. Slowly I inched my way closer and closer, judging distance
by volume. Then I realized I was creeping up on the woman as if I were about to
snatch her purse. I stopped, straightened my posture, and regained my dignity, but my heart was pounding now, and the ability to form whole sentences seemed too ambitious
an undertaking. I stood still a moment and just enjoyed my proximity to
her. The sales person had gone and Maya was silent, obviously standing alone. I listened to her standing there. She was probably perusing the selections on the shelf. Finally, I took a few more steps pretending to be looking for a book as I turned the corner. Then, there she was,
every tall inch of her. Every dignified, regal inch of her.
“Thank you for writing I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” I
said.
“Thank you,” she said.
“It was very meaningful to me.”
“I am very glad,” she said.
I kept moving. In fact, I think I
kept moving as I spoke, with no idea where I was going. I just needed
to slide out of her line of sight as gracefully as I had entered it. When I
found a spot alone, I took a deep breath and smiled. I knew I’d never meet her
like that again, and I just wanted to savor the moment. I hadn’t reverted to
being an adoring teenager, and this was not like being near a rock star. This was a new
sensation. There was something nameless about Maya Angelou, something profound
and timeless. Her presence was separate from her writing. With her, presence
was its own talent. That is to say, presence was part of what she was. She wasn’t just a writer or a dancer, an
actress, or a professor. She was being,
and such a full manifestation of being
that it made me understand that being
can also be an accomplishment, something we work toward.
I think our planet survives the
loss of stellar human beings because of the cumulative vibrational energy they
leave behind. Maya Angelou was the kind of person who never should have died,
but since we had to lose her, we must continue to connect with her presence through
her poetry, her interviews, and the thoughts she left in so many forms. I will also cherish my memory.
