It’s the Phenomenal Woman in Me
Maya Angelou and The Power of Being
I have never been cute or delicate. I experienced puberty just before the world developed its fascination with big lips and thick hips. Surrounded by petite white girls throughout my teenage years, my self-perception was warped into a state of ever-present dissatisfaction.
I needed to be skinnier. I needed my hair to be straighter. I needed to take up less space than my three-inches-shy-of-six-feet body would allow.
It’s in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
When I first read Maya Angelou’s poem “Phenomenal Woman” every stanza struck a cord in me. Each line cut away at the false sense of need I was carrying inside. There is a moment, I believe, in Black girlhood when us children need a Black woman to show us how to step into our own. I was still a girl when I read her poem, learning about the woman growing up inside of me.
Her word magic wrapped around the very essence of all that made me powerful and captivating in my own skin. She saw everything that I was and everything that I would be, and knew not only that I was enough but that I was abundant.
