Last night I had the opportunity to see Maya Angelou speak. And wow, is she one impressive lady. As the president of the University of Maine at Augusta (who sponsored the visit) said, when you hear the litany of her accomplishments you can”t help but think how most of us would be proud just to have done ONE of those things.

Anyways, it was a wonderful talk that I can’t hope to reproduce here. I would encourage anyone who hasn’t read Dr Angelou’s writings to check them out — they range from the heart-breaking to raucously funny, just like her talk last night. Listening to her read them aloud was particularly mesmerizing. Sidenote: the sign-language interpreters were also mesmerizing. I had never seen poetry conveyed in sign-language and it was fascinating to see how graceful and poetic the motions seemed, and how I could catch glimpses of the meaning in the motion.

The one bit I got out my notebook to record was when Dr Angelou spoke about courage, and said (paraphrasing, because I was taking notes in the dark) that it was the most important virtue, because without it, you could not practice the other virtues consistently. That really resonates with me, in terms of writing and so many other things in life. As another friend was saying to me just recently: fear is the enemy of creativity. You have to be courageous to dare to create something better, something that not everyone will like, something that might fail.

Writing, and life, aren’t about playing it safe and just getting by.

So, all-in-all it was an excellent evening, made even better because I got to have dinner with Cindy Lord (and my husband) beforehand and had their company afterward to talk about the event (as we waited to get out of the parking lot with the huge crowd — for Augusta Maine– that had come to hear Dr Angelou speak. Supposedly the biggest crowd since Elvis came here!).