Dear Reader,

You weren’t supposed to know that this new feature of the blog was going to exist until next week, but something happened today that made it so.

Maya Angelou died.

This space, or feature, with this headline and picture, is about thoughts and feelings on writing. My particular thoughts and feelings. It’s not about how to do something or anything. It’s what Dr. Angelou would call the pure space. The truest part of you. For me, the truest part of me are my words. They’re are what I have that is worth more than currency.

Maya Angelou understood that. She knew the power of words like so few do. And she used them in ways to uplift the truth and uplift the spirit.

That is how I felt today.

Her passing came as a shock to me. Her death came so sudden and so soon after Garcia Marquez. I felt it deeply, as I do when writers I admire pass on.

And when I saw her words, quotes in stories, her tweets, her words in books and poems, I felt uplifted, as if her words were the antidote to death.

So I rose, because Dr. Angelou told me to.

I did not let her passing make me sad. I let her passing make me grateful.  I am humbled by her existence in this world, that we were able to learn from her and take in her wisdom for more than 80 years.

I am grateful that she is an example of forgiveness, of how healing looks like, how wisdom comes from pain.

She was the example of how one never stops learning, teaching, creating. For this I am supremely grateful.

So very grateful.

So, today I rose and aimed to uplift others with my actions. I rededicated myself to words and to living the life worth living. And as for pain, to learn from it before it has time to consume you.

Today, I rose because Maya Angelou showed me how it’s done. Now, it’s our turn to do the same.