FEBRUARY 20, 2007
 Last month, when we bought our tickets to see Maya Angelou, I had no idea just how much I was going to need of something like this right now - something so profound, inspirational, and uplifting, and, oh, was it ever wonderful getting to see Maya Angelou speak tonight. I wish I could put into words how extraordinary Maya Angelou is, just like I wish I could type every word she spoke tonight and share it, but suffice it to say that tonight was the first time in ages that I truly felt happy and like there's still hope and a lot of opportunity left in life.
Yep, Dr. Angelou is that good. Her talent as an author, poet, playwright, activist, etc, is amazing, but it is her experience as a rape survivor that first drew me to her. I read I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings when I was in college and that autobiographical novel partly recounts Dr. Angelou's experience of being raped when she was seven. She was just a child at the time, and yet she had the courage to speak up and name the person who committed that awful crime against her, but the day after she named her rapist the police showed up at her house and informed her family that the rapist had been found beaten to death. A lot of people would say the death of a child rapist isn't a loss and that the guy got what he deserved, but seven year old Maya didn't see it that way. She named the man who raped her, and that man was beaten thereafter, which left Maya feeling like it was her voice that had killed him and she was so traumatized by it that she didn't speak another word for the next five years.
So I sat there tonight, listening to this phenomenal woman who knows all too well the kind of things I've been through, those things which have left me broken and still struggling years later, and I took heart in her words and presence. There is something not only immensely comforting in the company of fellow survivors, but also incredibly inspiring when you hear about how, despite experiencing the worst life has to offer, they've not only managed to heal, but gone on to do great things. And as a fellow survivor, that makes you think. Friends, family, doctors, and shrinks can talk themselves horse trying to tell you there's still hope, but it's easy to dismiss the words of people who have no empirical experience regarding what you've been through. But when a fellow survivor talks to you and says, 'hey, I know it's tough, I know your heartbroken and that you're hurting but, baby, let me tell you, there's hope for you yet,' it makes you sit up and pay attention like you're on a burning ship and the captain is telling you where the last life raft is.
And that's what I did tonight, I listened to Maya Angelou tell me where the life raft is. Of course, she didn't call it a life raft, she used words like courage, strength, hope, perseverance, and love, but it was a map to healing and life all the same. And when Ross and I were leaving the Schnitz tonight, and I was walking through hordes of people with nary an ounce of anxiety, I turned to Ross and said, "now there's a doctor who knows how to heal," because just listening to Maya Angelou helped infinitely more than the doctors and shrinks who have been trying to shove anti-depressants and sedatives down my throat, insisting meds will make me better. Mind you, there is something to be said for medication, but healing involves a lot more than that and sometimes a good dose of hope and inspiration from someone whose walked the same treacherous path as you is even better than what the doctor ordered.
Sometimes you need an example to follow and evidence that healing is possible, and Maya Angelou is the living, breathing proof of that, of hope and endless possibility.
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