Life Doesn't Frighten Me

The world lost a brave and brilliant light today. I lost a mentor who never knew what she meant to me, or to countless others who found inspiration, understanding, and strength in her words. 

Maya Angelou is dead.

I saw the news as I checked social media after dropping the boys off at school. I softly said, “Oh, no!” as tears rolled down my cheek.  I watched the boys walk into class. I wondered if they realized the importance of this day, and the woman for whom I cried.  Maya Angelou is gone.

The world is a dramatically different place than it was in the late 60’s when I was a young child.  Civil rights, race riots, and marches for racial equality in the US are thankfully a thing of the past. My 7 year old twin boys can’t fathom a world where people would be made to use separate bathrooms, or eat in different places based on the color of their skin. We talk now about the importance of not treating people differently based on who they choose to love. I hope soon this too will be a strange memory of a time long gone by.  But today, I’m reminded of that time, and of being an often frightened little girl in a large, often strange world.

I felt very “other” growing up. I know that’s not particularly uncommon, but the depths and length of the disconnection was, upon reflection, longer and deeper than most experience. I spent a lot of time paralyzed by fear, wanting to do things, say things, experience things I knew would be deemed bad, evil, hateful, devil-inspired by those around me.  So, I sat in silence, usually with my nose in a book, finding community and a sense of understanding in the words and stories of others.  Maya Angelou was one of these people for me.

Maya knew what it was like to experience fear, sorrow and loss, in ways much more profound than I’d experienced, and yet, she rose above it.  She overcame the horror, and soared above it.  She showed me a world where you can conquer the fear that keeps you bound, and unleash your soul to its rightful place in the clouds where it can fly and sing.

Over the years, when I was sad, or wondering how I could keep going after a setback, I returned to her words.  She inspired me to keep striving, keep going, keep overcoming.  She did it, and so could I. 

One of my favorite books is a copy of her poem “Life Doesn’t Frighten Me” beautifully illustrated with paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat. I pick it up every so often and read through the poem I know so well. It’s not one of her best known works, but it’s classic Maya Angelou.  It’s about not giving into your fear, but looking it square in the eye, and taking its power away by confronting it.

I will always carry her words in my heart, in fact many of them are etched on my soul, and have helped me when times were darkest. 

Rest well, sweet Maya. The world grieves. I grieve. But we will keep going, keep overcoming, keep making the world better, just as you taught us to do. Life really doesn't frighten me anymore.

Life Doesn't Frighten Me

By Maya Angelou

Shadows on the wall

Noises down the hall

Life doesn't frighten me at all

 

Bad dogs barking loud

Big ghosts in a cloud

Life doesn't frighten me at all

 

Mean old Mother Goose

Lions on the loose

They don't frighten me at all

 

Dragons breathing flame

On my counterpane

That doesn't frighten me at all.

 

I go boo

Make them shoo

I make fun

Way they run

I won't cry

So they fly

I just smile

They go wild

 

Life doesn't frighten me at all.

 

Tough guys fight

All alone at night

Life doesn't frighten me at all.

 

Panthers in the park

Strangers in the dark

No, they don't frighten me at all.

 

That new classroom where

Boys all pull my hair

(Kissy little girls

With their hair in curls)

They don't frighten me at all.

 

Don't show me frogs and snakes

And listen for my scream,

If I'm afraid at all

It's only in my dreams.

 

I've got a magic charm

That I keep up my sleeve

I can walk the ocean floor

And never have to breathe.

 

Life doesn't frighten me at all

Not at all

Not at all.

 

Life doesn't frighten me at all.