Maya Angelou

Yesterday was so beautiful, it was hard to go inside at U of T to teach - maple trees glowing in the hot sun, students scuffing through leaves, and did I mention the sun? One girl was wearing nothing but a tank top and shorts. Mid-October! In Canada! But class was wonderful - a great group. A former student called Shanny has come back - he organizes bicycle trips through exotic countries, Africa, India, the Middle East - and he brought a beautiful quote from Maya Angelou that we all loved and asked him to send to us.

'Every human being has paid the earth to grow up. Most people don’t grow up. It’s too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That’s the truth of it. They honor their credit cards, they find parking spaces, they marry, they have the nerve to have children, but they don’t grow up. Not really. They get older. But to grow up costs the earth, the earth. It means you take responsibility for the time you take up, for the space you occupy. It’s serious business. And you find out what it costs us to love and to lose, to dare and to fail. And maybe even more, to succeed. What it costs, in truth. Not superficial costs—anybody can have that—I mean in truth. That’s what I write. What it really is like. I’m just telling a very simple story.'

This makes me think of the people I know who have definitely not grown up. Mostly, I have to say, men.