So why DOES the caged bird sing?
Today’s writing challenge is to commit to a writing practice (way ahead on that one…) 🙂 Our seed topic is to write about the three most important songs to us OR to just write for 15 minutes.
Well, I don’t really listen to music very much because I have always preferred listening to people talk so I couldn’t think of three songs that were important enough to me to write about. So I opted to just write for 15 minutes.
Yesterday I watched Dance Moms (yes, I confess, I watch Dance moms…, I won’t even begin to try and justify that. I enjoy it, so I watch it). I had aspirations of being a ballet dancer, but then I got too tall… 5’11″… I think my parents were secretly happy that nature, not them, was the one that crushed my ballet dancing dreams.
Anyway, one of the little girls did a tribute “spoken word dance” to Maya Angelou and it got me thinking. I actually don’t know very much about Dr. Angelou.
I have heard snippets of some of her speeches and was moved by not just her words but also her delivery of them but the most I know about her is unfortunately what I have learned about her in these last few months following her passing.
I know she wrote a book called “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” and in one of the snippets of her speeches I have listened to I heard a portion of the back story of how the book came about. I personally have not read the book and after watching Dance Moms I was inspired to do so because let’s face it… I’m not exactly sure what or why the caged bird sings.
Do caged birds know their freedom has been taken away from them and thus perhaps singing shouldn’t be a priority or even an agenda item for them? Or are birds just pre-programmed to sing regardless of their circumstance, unlike us human beings that falter and flail when circumstances are sub-optimal (at least, in our estimation)?
Why does the caged sing?
Should I allow a reality TV show to have such a deep impact on me? I guess it’s not really about the TV show as it is about learning about someone whom I am beginning to understand I perhaps ought to have appreciated more in life rather than in death.
I never knew this lady but I will end this piece the same way the dance piece ended…
Goodbye Maya.
Photos courtesy of public domain and Adria Richards