...of I'm Here!

As many times I've seen the movie "The Color Purple" over the years, I'd never taken away from it what I took away two nights ago. I mean this is a movie that I have watched over and over, again and again, and recite almost verbatim each character's lines. Before it was a movie about forgiveness and change to me, but on Monday evening it became a movie about the soul evolution of a woman who had finally saw herself as God does.

I saw the character Celie, played by Whoopi Goldberg, as the woman in Ntozake Shange's poem, "Dark Phrases" from her book titled, "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf," (which Tyler Perry did an awesome job of transforming into a movie). After years of sexual and emotional abuse and being soulfully stifled, Celie literally stood up and spoke life for herself. Of course when she did, Mister, her husband who was played by Danny Glover, made one more attempt at oppressing her but it was too late. Celie had had enough and as she is being driven off, she said, "I'm poor, black, I may even be ugly, but dear God I'm here...I'M HERE!" LOVE IT!