The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Maya Angelou’s Beautiful Letter to Her Younger Self

“You only are free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all,” the late and great Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928–May 28, 2014) told Bill Moyers in their extraordinary 1973 conversation.

The theme of home and belonging is central to Angelou’s work — to her spirit — and is also at the heart of her beautiful contribution to Ellyn Spragins’s 2006 anthology What I Know Now: Letters to My Younger Self (public library), which also gave us Naomi Wolf’s spectacular no-bullshit letter to her younger self.

Angelou writes:

Dear Marguerite,

You’re itching to be on your own. You don’t want anybody telling you what time you have to be in at night or how to raise your baby. You’re going to leave your mother’s big comfortable house and she won’t stop you, because she knows you too well.

But listen to what she says:

When you walk out of my door, don’t let anybody raise you — you’ve been raised.

You know right from wrong.

In every relationship you make, you’ll have to show readiness to adjust and make adaptations.

Remember, you can always come home.

You will go home again when the world knocks you down — or when you fall down in full view of the world. But only for two or three weeks at a time. Your mother will pamper you and feed you your favorite meal of red beans and rice. You’ll make a practice of going home so she can liberate you again — one of the greatest gifts, along with nurturing your courage, that she will give you.

Be courageous, but not foolhardy.

Walk proud as you are,

Maya

Two years later, in 2008, Angelou would revisit the theme of home and belonging in her breathtaking letters to the daughter she never had.

What I Know Now features more contributions by such extraordinary women as Madeleine Albright, Roz Chast, and Ingrid Newkirk. Complement this particular gem with Maya Angelou on identity and the meaning of life


Published July 1, 2014

https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/07/01/maya-angelous-letter-to-her-younger-self/

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