Masks

There is one more birthday of a famous person that I would like to celebrate today.  Today happens to be the birthday of the American author and poet, humanitarian, and civil rights activist, Maya Angelou.  She would have been 91 years old today, but she died in 2014.  During her career, Professor Angelou (she was the first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University) wrote a series of seven autobiographies (including perhaps her most famous work, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (which details her early life until about age 17), three books of essays, and several books of poetry.  As a civil rights activist, she worked with both Martin Luther King, Jr (who was assassinated on her birthday) and Malcolm X.  She appeared in a number of plays and television programs (including several appearances on the children's television program Sesame Street, including one of my personal favorites here).  Professor Angelou recited her poem, "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Bill Clinton's Inauguration Day (making her the first poet to appear at a Presidential Inauguration since Robert Frost appeared at President John F. Kennedy's).  She was the recipient of a number of awards and honors, including over 50 honorary degrees, the National Medal of Arts (2000), and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2011).  She was nominated for a Pullitzer Prize, a Tony Award, and three Grammys.  I greatly admire her contributions to our country, and I have posted about her more than once - see "Still I Rise" and "We Are More Alike My Friends..."). 

My most recent post on Professor Angelou referred to a line in her poem, "Human Family":

We are more alike, my friends,
Than we are unalike.

I hope that you will indulge me a little more, for this poem reminds me of another favorite poem of mine by Shel Silverstein.  It's called, simply, "Masks."  Like most of Silverstein's poems, it also comes with a cartoon:

 

The beautiful thing about poetry is that several different individuals can have a number of different interpretations of the same poem, depending upon their own perspectives.  Here is my interpretation of Silverstein's poem.  Each of the two characters in the poem go through life wearing a mask to hide what they feel makes them different from the rest of society.  As such, they both go through life searching for someone "just like them" and never find each other.  Rather than embracing their differences (I am making the assumption that not everyone in their world has blue skin) and finding their similarities, they hide what sets them apart from the rest of society.  And as a result, they never truly find happiness (here, perhaps, the color blue symbolizes sadness).

Professor Angelou embraced the things that made her different.  But she also believed that there were more things that she had in common with everyone else.  I think that is true for all of us.  Indeed, we are more alike than we are different.  There is nothing wrong with being different.  Being different makes us unique.  But we are all a part of this same world nevertheless.  We are all on this same journey called life together.  Perhaps we could best honor Maya Angelou's memory and the legacy that she left behind by remembering that, today of all days.