Di Alam Maya

Note 10.

Book number 25: Why the caged bird sings. 

i. He closed in upon himself like a pond swallowing a stone. 

ii / iii. The days had become longer and more noticeable. The faded beige of former times had been replaced with strong and sure colours / Youth and social approval allied themselves with me and we trammeled memories of slights and insults. The wind of our swift passage remodelled my features.

iv. The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education. 

v. Without willing it, I had gone from being ignorant of being ignorant to being aware of being aware. 

vi. To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal decision. Few, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender to the vague but murderous pressure of adult conformity. 

Amongst the many passages of impeccable prose penned by the mighty Maya Angelou. I confess it's been too long since I'd read a literature this eloquent; literature that was poetic, pensive, and playful. Literature that was not a caricature or an echo of the universally digitalised dialect. Coming to this from Britney Spear's autobiography was the sensation of being swallowed by an ocean wave after waddling in a pool.