Carol’s Column

Next century will be good for women and my Maya

Yesterday I said goodbye to a very special person with whom I spent the past three weeks in close proximity. Her name is Maya, my granddaughter with spiky hair, large eyes and three chins.

As I said, we've been particularly close in more ways than one.

Every day, we shared a poetry reading. I read the poem aloud and she'd listen, her eyes wide, her chins dimpling.

There was one poem I repeated often – Phenomenal Women by Maya Angelou – and she particularly enjoyed the final four lines of each verse:

I'm a woman Phenomenally Phenomenal woman That's me

Whenever I read the above words, her tiny nose wrinkled conically.

Afterwards, as is usual at a poetry reading, we discussed the poem.

“Maya, that poem was written for you and me,” I said. She nodded her head and looked up quizzically.

I wanted to kiss Maya, who's only been around for 22 days, to know she truly had something to celebrate, for she too was a sister, a woman, a phenomenal woman.

Maya Angelou is, of course, a contemporary American poet.

I am a great admirer of her poetry and prose, and I guess Bill Clinton is too for it was Maya Angelou's poem, On the Pulse of the Morning, which was chosen by Clinton to be read at his inauguration in January 1993.

Mind you, it's probably only in poetry that Clinton and my tastes are similar.

Her namesake, Maya not Angelou, is not as well known. Yet. Let's give her time.

Late when the chill American wind cut through the night and Maya not Angelou woke, we'd walk, talk and bounce together.

“You've arrived at the right moment,” I told her. “The next century's going to be good for women. Much better than this one has been,” I added for good measure.

These discussions took place during the time Maya not Angelou's parents, exhausted by the sleepless nights and demanding days, as with every newborn, grab a few hours' sleep relief. I treasured the time as I walked around singing and burping my Maya, reading her Pablo Neruda's last poems and singing Beatles songs. Or we'd just chat.

“I'm your African granny,” I told her. “And I'm going to show you elephants and lions and warthogs. We'll climb Table Mountain and hike in the Drakensberg and I'll teach you to speak Afrikaans, click in Xhosa and sing Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika.

“We'll eat pap, wors, biltong. I'll take you to a rugby match and we'll go to northern KwaZulu Natal to watch turtle hatching. And perhaps,” I added, “if we're very lucky, one day we'll find an aardvark.”

Admittedly, I'm not sure that Maya not Angelou always took in what I said, and sometimes it was obvious she was more interested in matters pertaining to nourishment. I discovered in times of cacophonous crisis, there was nothing to beat the Click Song and she was not to know I was not Miriam Makeba.

Yesterday I said goodbye to Maya, my phenomenal little woman, my precious granddaughter and drove to the airport to catch the first of my connecting flights from the United States home.

I tried not to cry because I knew I'd be seeing her in February when the kids come to South Africa to visit.

Then the politically correct thought illuminated my brain space. How could I feel sorry for myself when millions of mothers and grandmothers were apart from their children for years on end, separated by apartheid, not choice. Now they truly are phenomenal women.

Dammit, I do miss Maya not Angelou.

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