Maya Angelou

What can I say? Maya Angelo is awesome! - and that is a major understatement! Here are a couple of excerpts from her writings.

From "Even the Stars Look Lonesome" on moving forward.
"So, I gave my ex-husband the Bay Area -- I gave him San Francisco and Oakland and the hills and the bays and the bridges, and all that beauty. And I moved to North Carolina. I though I'd find a small, neat little bungalow and I'd step into it and pull its beautiful walls around my shoulders. I though that was very poetic, and that way I would just sort of muddle through the rest of my life.
However, once I got to North Carolina, I realized that my gigantic old-fashioned furniture would not be accommodated in a bungalow. I also considered that if I moved from a ten-room house in the hills of Oakland to anything smaller, I would be implying, at least to myself, that my circumstances had been reduced."

Ok, that thought of doing something against what my inner voice is telling me to do only reduces me. How can I do anything that will reduce me?
Sometimes I really fight with myself on doing or not doing something when what I really need to do is get quiet and listen. I can’t listen when I am talking – and my inner cynic can scream loud and long. But that is not what I need to be doing. I need to shut the inner cynic down. I can’t scream louder or become more persistent than the critic because then the critic wins even when that critic is me. I can, however, shut the critic down by becoming quiet. Breathe deeply. Let the good flow into your being. Exhale allowing all the pain, anguish, hurt, bitterness, disappointment, and ugly thoughts flow out and vaporize upon hitting the clean, fresh light.

Here is a poem I enjoy becuase I've felt this way many a time.
"Woman Work" by Maya Angelou

I've got the children to tend

The clothes to mend

The floor to mop

The food to shop

Then the chicken to fry

The baby to dry

I got company to feed

The garden to weed

I've got shirts to press

The tots to dress

The can to be cut I gotta clean up this hut

Then see about the sick

And the cotton to pick.

Shine on me, sunshine

Rain on me, rain

Fall softly, dewdrops

And cool my brow again.

Storm, blow me from here

With your fiercest wind

Let me float across the sky

'Til I can rest again.

Fall gently, snowflakes

Cover me with white

Cold icy kisses and

Let me rest tonight.

Sun, rain, curving sky

Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone

Star shine, moon glow

You're all that I can call my own.