Larger than life....

I had the interesting experience yesterday of discovering 2 very inspirational women, who were both very tall.  As well as being notably tall, they are both inspirational, passionate, amazing women who seem to have an effect on me. 

The first one I encountered quite fatefully.  I had saved 4 movies for my husband and I to choose from only to realize we had already seen 3 of them, and so we watched Julie & Julia. And so I met Julia.  My prior knowledge only coming from Saturday Night Live, my knowledge of her life was, shall we say limited.  Her story was fascinating to me.  To be such an intelligent, liberated American woman in Paris who's activity choices were bridge and hat making, she carved out a passion for herself, and a name.

My second encounter of the evening came around 2am while watching OWN. OWN is the new Oprah Winfrey Network, which has a new show called Master Class.  This episode was of Maya Angelou.  Now while Oprah herself may have come across rather airhead-ish, it was not enough for me to change the channel from Maya's words.  Her story, so tragic, riveting, passionate and inspirational had me riveted.  There is a quote by the roman play write Terence "I am a human being; nothing human can be alien to me".  While to me this is a pointed but rather innocuous quote; this was Maya Angelou's response to the question 'if life was a class, what have you learned from it?'  Her passionate response to the capabilities of a human being both positive and negative being the inspiration to grow, preserver, forgive, succeed and be the strong woman she is floored me.  To quote loosely she said 'if that human being who committed this atrocity has the parts and capability to do so, so do I....if that human being who has become and created these amazing things has the parts and capacity to do so, so do I'.  To say the least it adjusted my mindset.

Now why are these women larger than life?  They are both over 6 feet tall.  Both taller than any woman I know, and both speak to the power and strength of American women.