A Septuagenarian Sings #12

How Maya Angelou helps me cope with chaos – inner and outer

Mar 14, 2025

a yellow flower is growing out of a crack in the concrete — Photo by American Jael on Unsplash

I lead a monthly workshop – Write Your Heart Out and Heal – for people with cancer and their caregivers. Writing is healing.

With one caveat.

Rant all you like. Moan and groan. Whine. Primal scream. Pour the pain upon the page. Storm. Thunder. Release the rage.

But do NOT stop here. As researchers have discovered, healing happens as the rains cease. As we allow, within sacred, trusting silence, some lovely little epiphany to sprout like a dandelion in a driveway.

“There is emerging agreement, however, that the key to writing's effectiveness is in the way people use it to interpret their experiences, right down to the words they choose. Venting emotions alone – whether through writing or talking – is not enough to relieve stress and thereby improve health…To tap writing's healing power, people must use it to better understand and learn from their emotions.” American Psychological Association

When my ex-partner had cancer, I was Sherlock with a magnifying glass – painstakingly, rarely patiently searching on raw knees for a clue to what healing path to take next, for a seed pearl of wisdom. What can I learn from this, I’d ask myself.

St. Paul was on the road to Damascus when his enlightenment journey began. Mine began in the Infusion Lab at the hospital.

I’d sit beside my ex-partner as Cisplatin (a chemo drug) coursed through his system. The ex would visualize warriors on magic carpets. (Visualization is a big part of cancer treatment.) I’d watch the bluebonnets swaying outside the lab’s tall windows and imagine walking among them. Be brave, be resilient, they’d sing.

On the floor below, the cancer center’s neon crimson door greeted me like a valentine. Red has many meanings, I learned – passion and love, anger and death, danger and courage, power and authority, energy and excitement, stop as opposed to go. And, so, I vowed, I would stop being a control freak. I would allow, acknowledge, embrace whatever emotion, whenever. Additionally, to help me not mess up, I memorized this tract, attributed to Buddha:

Change is never painful; only resistance to change is painful.

Meanwhile, crows started appearing so often, in the live oaks lining the hospital parking lot or on wires during the drive home, that I adopted them as bona fide spirit guides. Crows have followed me from state to state, house to house ever since, these talismans of transformation and intelligence. May I ever transform. May I ever be wise.

Similarly, white egrets showed up during my walks in a nearby park. Good fortune awaits, they’d assure me. Liquid shafts of rainbows –in a fountain not far from the creek, once or twice in a muddy puddle – echoed the birds’ message. Every so often a full-blown rainbow arched from one end of the wide Texas horizon to the other. Jagged prisms spilt through windowpanes across tile floors or my bed nearly daily.

Sherlock was addicted to cocaine. My addiction is looking up the symbolism of virtually everything. I may feel alone, abandoned, friendless, forgotten – but I’m not. Though I must admit that, while I was thrilled to leave Dallas, I miss the egrets. Little old septuagenarian ladies may live in Pasadena, but not my white winged friends.

“And everybody's sayin' that there's nobody meaner than
The little old lady from Pasadena”
Jan and Dean, 1964

Recently, my voice teacher, Jessica, texted me the first stanza of Maya Angelou’s poem Continue. As this little old lady read it, my intuitive antennae tingled like Uncle Martin’s in My Favorite Martian, a beloved Boomer sitcom.

The photo is courtesy of Wikipedia. Here’s the stanza, courtesy of Jessica. Bolding, mine:

My wish for you
Is that you continue
Continue
To be who and how you are
To astonish a mean world
With your acts of kindness
Continue

I am running late, frustrated by the interminable line at the checkout counter. My aggravation grows as the person ahead of me ever so slowly counts out money from his wallet, including pocket change.

“I’m sorry,” he says at length. “I don’t have enough.” The little girl with him, no older than five – his daughter? — begins to cry.

OMG he doesn’t have the money to purchase a doll.

“Add it to my bill,” I instruct the cashier.

The man begins to protest. “Don’t argue,” I tell him. “I’m paying it forward.”

Deeds among thousands for which I was indebted at the time:

· A young man treating everyone at Starbucks, and there were a LOT of us

· My neighbor’s son saving me from almost certain miscarriage – trapping a garden snake I’d found lounging in my living room

· The Universe sending a friend to tap on my window when our cars stalled on a hill in a blizzard; the truck driver giving us a ride home in the back of his pickup

· My daughter suggesting “let’s go to Paris” then making all the travel plans for a Mother/Daughter trip of a lifetime

· My son-in-law showing me how to repair a hose hook-up, then presenting me with my own wrench

· My son buying me a ‘real’ camera as a surprise gift, even after I’d annoyed him our entire weekend together snapping photo after photo on my phone

· My ex-husband’s forgiveness and ongoing generosity

· My grandson existing, Gift Incarnate

I also could have told the man, “Don’t argue. I’m being selfish.”

All that I give is given to myself…giver and receiver are the same. A Course in Miracles

“Be kind whenever possible,” adds the world’s most beloved disciple of Oneness. “It is always possible.”

Every morning, the Dalai Lama prays this prayer — a prayer of Maitrī, of loving-kindness. So, now, do I. It wouldn’t surprise me if Maya did as well.

May I be a guard for those who need protection,
A guide for those on the path,
A boat, a raft, a bridge for those who wish to cross the flood.
May I be a lamp in the darkness,
A resting place for the weary,
A healing medicine for all who are sick,
A vase of plenty, a tree of miracles;
And for the boundless multitudes of living beings,
May I bring sustenance and awakening,
Enduring like the earth and sky
Until all beings are freed from sorrow, And all are awakened.

Shantidiva

Oh, how this prayer inspires me. Yes, I will be a vase of plenty for those starved for Beauty. Yes, I will be a tree of miracles for those whose fear has left them bereft and barren, who lack love. Yes, yes, yes to all of it.

Yes, I will continue, Maya. I will continue to be kind. I will continue – even when I am wearied and disheartened and hurt and fearful and cranky.

I will continue even when I am ever so aggravated by MAGA. I will continue even if I feel damn near homicidal, hearing that man and his minions lie yet one more time, commit one more indifferent act of indefensible cruelty.

I will astonish a mean world. I will muster inner light and spill rainbows. I will lift my white wings and do my bit to elevate, elevate, elevate others.