"You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt,
But still, like dust, I'll rise." --Maya Angelou.
Some people can stand beside me and speak but a few words, yet I sense in them a power. Their speech is pure somehow, and comes not from intellect alone, but something deeper.
I have a Yahoo! 360 page that I hardly ever go to anymore, but I went there a few minutes ago while my coffee brewed. I'd forgotten the above quote from possibly our greatest poet.
But this is not about Maya Angelou. Frankly, as is often the case, right now, as I begin this diary, I have not a clear idea of what I want to write. I feel the Flow, like a cloud of words, around my shoulders.
A woman would come into the store where I worked years ago. I did not see her often, but when I did, I always felt better. A similar feeling that I would have whenever I saw Maya on TV. This woman had that same Angelou quality, that grace of bearing, her words flowing, and it mattered not if they were mundane or profound...but the profound was a gift to treasure.
Part of me is worried about something. It is the part that doesn't know what it is or how it got "here". Another part of me is brave, full of confidence, because it does know.
"That son-of-a bitch in Washington wants my money!" The old man declared, as I put his stuff in a bag. A rather discordant energy. But this isn't about cranks who most likely have trunks of money in their basement, either. He had that affluent air...the area where I work is upper middle class, and some above that. Karl Mecklenberg, a former (great) Denver Bronco shops there semi-regularly. But I digress. Or do I?
There is a reason I'm on this site. I never really was interested in politics, being deeply into things unseen, the metaphysics of everything. But since the advent of "That son-of-a [white woman from Kansas]" who pauses to speak to the startled Marine at the Presidential Helicopter...kisses homeless ladies...gives a crap about The People, well, since then, I started to pay attention.
We each have a role. Some of us are cynics, some cockeyed optimists (I'm a regular optimist, not cockeyed); atheists, Christians, New Thought, New Age, Wiccan...scared, hopeful, scary-smart...
Now that I think of it, I heard another man crying about President Obama yesterday. Is it not interesting how they need not say his name, but we know instantly to whom they refer? "I need your help...I will be your president, too."
The cadence of their speech, these not-of-this world people with whom I began this diary, the delicious (for I can "taste" words) offering of their presence in a light and lovely eloquence, like a state dinner for poets...that cadence is a song of life to me.
In fact, it is as if they are not really people (and yes, I know how that sounds). Maybe they are Lincoln's better angels, I don't know. Or maybe Darwin's idea of survival of the fittest in this way can be seen as survival of the brightest (the word brightest with herein a new meaning).
We need all of us, don't we? If most of us "The Majority" are pulling together, we can do anything. It is starting to look like "sink or swim" time. But there are those whose presence elevates a certain something within the rest of us, and there is comfort in numbers, and no place like home...from the California sandstone rock I used to sit at and meditate, to the never warm enough yet awesomely beautiful Oregon coast, to the flat irons at the foot of the Rockies, those stately, sloping, seemingly eternal doorways to Boulder...this our home. This our place to grow. This our dysfunctional family, sprinkled with those angels just when we need them.
I believe there is a fundamental change underfoot ("...like dust I'll rise"); I believe the world is transforming into a new way of being. I don't believe in doomsdays, and crazy religious morbidity. In fact, I'd rather hang with the atheists than the religionists, but I mean no offense. I do believe in Something...
"We are not here to hide our light under a basket. Do the work. Others will see and wonder...just be." --We Who Dream.
"I went to a party
out in Hollywood,
The atmosphere was shoddy
but the drinks were good,
and that's where I heard you laugh." --Maya Angelou.
"How long will I continue 'walking', raising dust, as I stamp my feet in place?" --We Who Dream.