Dr maya angelou quotes movie#

When I return home, I am always surprised to find some questions I sought to evade had been answered and some entanglements I had hoped to flee had become unraveled in my absence. If we step away for a time, we are not, as many may think and some will accuse, being irresponsible, but rather we are preparing ourselves to more ably perform our duties and discharge our obligations. We need hours of aimless wandering or spates of time sitting on park benches, observing the mysterious world of ants and the canopy of treetops. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us. Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.

Jobs, lovers, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. I detest encountering even the closest friend, for then I am reminded of who I am, and the circumstances of my life, which I want to forget for a while. I do not want to know my name, where I live, or how many dire responsibilities rest on my shoulders.

Dr maya angelou quotes movie#

I enter and leave public parks, libraries, the lobbies of skyscrapers, and movie houses. If I am living in a city, I wander streets, window-shop, or gaze at buildings. I dress in comfortable shoes and casual clothes and leave my house going no place. On the morning I wake naturally, for I will have set no clock, nor informed my body timepiece when it should alarm. I sit for at least an hour in a very hot tub then I lay out my clothes in preparation for my morning escape, and knowing that nothing will disturb me, I sleep the sleep of the just. I turn the radio dial to an all-music station, preferably one which plays the soothing golden oldies.

I inform housemates, my family and close friends that I will not be reachable for twenty-four hours then I disengage the telephone. On the eve of my day of absence, I begin to unwrap the bonds which hold me in harness. Once a year or so I give myself a day away. That is not true, or if it is true, then our situations were so temporary that they would have collapsed anyway. “A Day Away We often think that our affairs, great or small, must be tended continuously and in detail, or our world will disintegrate, and we will lose our places in the universe. I do know, however, that if I leave little to chance, if I am careful about the kinds of seeds I plant, about their potency and nature, I can, within reason, trust my expectations.” Of course, there is no absolute assurance that those things I plant will always fall upon arable land and will take root and grow, nor can I know if another cultivator did not leave contrary seeds before I arrived. Now, after years of observation and enough courage to admit what I have observed, I try to plant peace if I do not want discord to plant loyalty and honesty if I want to avoid betrayal and lies.

My lame excuse is that I have not always known that actions can only reproduce themselves, or rather, I have not always allowed myself to be aware of that knowledge. Too many times for comfort I have expected to reap good when I know I have sown evil. “Although nature has proven season in and season out that if the thing that is planted bears at all, it will yield more of itself, there are those who seem certain that if they plant tomato seeds, at harvesttime they can reap onions.