In light of the murder of Michael Brown and the continuing shame of Ferguson, Missouri… these words from Maya Angelou are still, and always, relevant. “Pick up the battle… it’s yours!”
In 2006, Maya Angelou sat down in her home in North Carolina with Dave Chappelle for a conversation that was recorded as part of the Sundance Iconoclasts series.
The entire hour is available on YouTube in four parts. From the 5:00 mark of this clip, Maya remembers her friends Malcolm and Martin… how this is both historical and personal for her, these iconic figures were also her friends… and how the anger in the aftermath of their assassinations was fuel for action. She has a message for those of us who are angry about the state of our country and our world.
“You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object. So use that anger. You write it. You paint it. You dance it. You march it. You vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it…
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The WWTM started, as one does, at city hall. Beverly Hills City Hall is a gorgeous Spanish Revival exclamation point of a tower, topped with a cupola and lots of gold leaf, that anchors a civic center complex of administrative offices, the BHPD, library and a new performing arts center. Here’s a fun fact I just unearthed over at Wikipedia:
As I approached the entrance plaza, I saw a crowd of people in identical bright orange t-shirts and hats. Hmmm. I didn’t get that memo. I went smart-casual with dark plaid shorts and a raw silk black Hawaiian shirt. I soon found Annie & Scott and was relieved to see that they were not in orange. They were in pink. I felt like a truffle in a big bowl of sorbet. Annie’s friend Valerie was also in black, but only because she is a serious filmmaker who had only stopped by to say hello. There was a hashtag printed on the orange-wear: #BHHEALTHYCITY and I found myself chatting with one of the citrus-hued enthusiasts. The Healthy City initiative is Mayor Bosse’s push to get her constituents in shape! Think Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! program – but with better shopping.
It was blazing hot, even at 8:30am – with the added insult of unusual humidity due to the infernal monsoonal moisture churning up from Mexico. Remember what I was wearing? A black silk shirt. The only thing better than black at trapping body heat is… silk. I was screwed. Oh, and I left my water bottle in the car. Strike 3! If I had another kidney stone by the end of this walk, it would be my own damn fault.
about ecological disaster at that point. Then, 200 people tried to get under the shade of an old magnolia tree while the Mayor introduced the BH Board of Ed. I had almost rehydrated by the time we were herded onto the wide steps of the high school for a ‘class picture’. (Did I mention that my dear friend Anne was Athlete of the Year in 1976 at BH High? She is overly talented, that one.) Scott and I hung in the back row, like street urchins, possibly making snarky comments about this person or that. It was hot. We were tired. He still wasn’t convinced that pink shorts were in keeping with his sense of masculinity. We took a selfie with 
dropped about 20 degrees, which was fabulous but confusing. Then I understood: every shop along Beverly had its air-conditioning cranked up to meat-locker freezing, with their doors wide open to the sidewalk. People started peeling off from the parade to get lost in the extravagantly cool spaces. Annie, Scott and I found ourselves in a cavernous Pottery Barn. It felt like the lobby of one of those ice hotels in Finland. I admired the pillows and candles and leather arm chairs while my core temperature dipped back into double digits.
Armistead Maupin 
The City is San Francisco, and the Tales center on three main characters: Mary Ann Singleton is a naive young woman from Ohio who takes a vacation in San Francisco and decides to stay. She finds a room in a boarding house at 28 Barbary Lane (Macondray Lane steps, in our world) on Russian Hill, presided over by a mysterious woman called Mrs Madrigal. Michael…
be doing. Mourning a tree? That sentiment would not have been greeted with understanding or sympathy. But it was the beginning of my lifelong affinity for trees. Do others share this? I don’t know. It’s not something that comes up in conversation very often. I do know that many people don’t give a fig about trees. Are they in the way? Cut ’em down! Blocking a view? Cut ’em down! I’d rather cut those people down.
Sure, I like to see my Visitors and Views and Comments numbers trending generally upward. It’s some basic affirmation that my posts go out into the world and attract some interest, collect a few likes, perhaps elicit a response, sometimes connect me to a new blogger. But I must confess, my favorite stat is the Views by Country. I’m a map fiend. Always have been. My earliest memory of a prized possession – aside from my red-and-white-gingham stuffed spaniel – was a globe. It spun on its axis and had a raised relief surface that I could run my fingers over and feel the bumpiness of the great mountain ranges: the Alps, the Himalayas, the Rockies and the undersea ridges. Every country was a different pastel color; I remember wondering if it was color coded. Were all the yellow countries part of some club? Or all the pinks or greens? I abandoned that notion when it seemed like just a good way to show where one country ended and another began. A star pinpointed each capital city. I could trace the paths of the great rivers, see how vast the oceans were compared to the land masses. Follow the equator as it circled the earth like a belt. The white snowcaps at the poles seemed otherworldly (as they are) and eternal (as we are learning they are not).
The magic of the globe for me was its realistic representation of what little I understood of the real world, and its place in the real universe. When I saw the famous photograph of the Earth seen from the Moon, it made sense to me. There was my globe. It was a symbol that had power because I knew it was true. (It wasn’t very many years later that religious symbolism fell apart because I knew instinctively that it was a fiction. But that’s another blog post.)
The End 